Fun Trip #1

Kristen, Jarren, and I are back! We had a lot of fun visiting my sister and her family. We did a lot of fun things and had some good visiting as well. And we played a lot of UNO! Jarren got into this things where if he got a wild card, skip, reverse, or draw two, he'd hoard it in a little pile and refused to use it. Well, that was fine until the deck ran out and we had to shuffle again--then there were less of those cards to go around. It was funny! Kristen was such a good babysitter--she was always so helpful.

We went to this really cool train museum. The trains were real old ones and HUGE!!! We also took a train ride along the river. Jarren LOVES trains, so he was in heaven.













We also went to a park and fed the ducks and played. The zoo was another fun activity. There were some different things than our zoo has--like flamingos, kangaroos and wallabies, and stuff like that. They had a little playground there that the kids had fun playing on.











We tried to go swimming, but all the outdoor pools are still closed, so my brother-in-law bought a blow up pool and the kids had a blast in that!


We went to a Jelly Belly factory. It smelled soooooo good!!!!! And it was very interesting. Of course I had to buy some to bring home. Yum!

Our plane ride home wasn't a lot of fun--first of all, it was delayed. Secondly, we hit some pretty nasty turbulence. They wouldn't let us land, so we circled around and around in clouds and turbulence for about 20 minutes. It was really windy so I guess they had to reconfigure landing patterns and we were rocking and rolling right up until we were actually on the ground.

Overall though, it was a very nice vacation!!! We all had a lot of fun!

Vacations...

Today was the last day of school for Kendall and Kristen....until May 19. We are on year-round school and with the track we're on, the kids get a break for 3 weeks in August, November, February, and May and the whole school is out for about 3 1/2 weeks in July. I guess this break is just a few days early, but that's okay.

Tomorrow morning, Jarren, Kristen, and I are going to visit my sister for a few days. We are soooo excited! Jon and Kendall will be going to visit his cousin back East for a week in mid-May. And then Jon and I get to go to Germany for 10 days in June!!! Thank goodness for Grandmas (they'll both be watching the kids for us)!!! Hopefully, I'll remember some of the German I learned in high school and college. Oh, Jon travels a bit for work and this trip to Germany is a business trip (his 4th one there) and I get to tag along. YAY!! (Can't tell I'm excited, can you?)

We should have some fun stories and pictures to post after all of these trips. :) Ciao!

Funny, random things....

Jenna has this thing lately where she'll call me, "Mooomm?" And when I answer, "What?" she'll say, "Nine, thirteen!" I say, "Nine, thirteen?!" and she'll reply, "Ten, eleven, twelve!" I have no idea what she means by this, but it's a fun little game for her.

I gave her a little bowl of trail mix the other day and she dumped the whole thing out on the floor. I said, "Jenna, why did you do that?" She just looked at me and said, "Because." She's always asking why--I really didn't think she was old enough to be in the "why" stage, but maybe she is.

Jenna's name means "small bird" and she loves birds! We have some robins with a nest in one of the trees and the parents will come down and find worms in the lawn and Jenna runs to the window, calling out to them. We let her outside and she chases them around saying, "C'mere cute birdie!" Then when they fly away, she cries. She just wants to hold one sooo badly!

We have some good friends, the Hansens, who live across the street. I was combing Jarren's hair a few weeks back and said, "Wow! You look so handsome!" He whipped around and said, "Hansen? Why am I a Hansen?"

New Shelves

I know some of you have seen these before, but I had to document it. We got our new entertainment center and bookshelves last week!!!! We got the speakers/surround sound put in on Saturday and now we're in desperate need of a couch. They didn't have some of the doors ready yet, but they should be installed today (I hope). We've been spending a lot of time trying to move things out of boxes and onto the shelves, but it takes time, especially when I have a lot of "helpers."

I really love how things look and now I want to re-do the kitchen cabinets. I want to do them in the same wood as the bookshelves on either side of the fireplace. But.....we need to save up a little more before we can do it. :) Isn't that how it always goes?

Spring is here....kind of

I have no idea why, but it's always so windy where we are. And then when a storm blows in, it gets even worse. Jon and Jarren built a fort about 2 weeks ago and it blew down last night, along with part of our fence. I told Jarren it's a good thing he's not one of the Three Little Pigs, since his fort was built of sticks. :) It seems that we get a couple of warm days and then it snows, like it's supposed to do again today. I guess that's how spring is, but I'm ready for the 70s. Those kinds of days are my ideal weather. At least the grass is greening up and some of the flowers are starting to bloom.

Kristen's Baptism

Kristen was baptized today! I'm so proud of her for making this big decision. I bought Kristen a new dress--mostly white, with some pink flowers. I didn't want to buy one of those expensive poofy dress that she'd wear once, but I couldn't find anything modest! This one is a sun dress, but we bought a cute t-shirt to go underneath it. When I was that age, I was so nervous that my hair would float up, so we put her hair in French braids. Kendall was being the "typical big brother" this morning and was totally annoying Kristen! We all started getting grumpy with each other and then realized that this wasn't going to make good memories for her. She was soooo nervous!
During the talks, Jenna went crazy! She started screaming and flopping around on the floor because I'm a mean mom and didn't pack her a fruit snack. And Jarren....sometimes he just does not belong to me!! He was hopping around and he couldn't keep quiet! He kept making little noises during the prayer and I thought for sure he'd jump into the font. He was right on the edge and yelling, "Hi Daddy!"
Kristen had her two best friends there, her Primary teacher, the whole Bishopric, the Primary President, and lots of family. We hosted a dinner for the family here at our house afterward. As Kristen said, "Mom, that was a really fun party and a nice day, wasn't it?" Yes, it was--a very nice day indeed.

Jenna's Owie

Jenna usually takes a 2-3 hour nap in the afternoons, but yesterday, for some reason, she didn't. She was super tired and really wanted to play outside. While I was finishing up dinner, Jon went out with her and Jarren. Jenna was running along and smacked down (face first) on the sidewalk. I'm not sure if she fell because she was tired or if she just tripped over her own two feet. You can't really see it in the pictures, but she has a big goose egg on her forehead and her nose is really scraped up. She cried and cried and when she looks in the mirror, she says, "Jenna dirty!" Poor baby!

St. George

We just had a fun weekend in St. George! Kristen had a dance competition down there on Saturday, so we made a weekend out of it. She is a crocodile in the production number Peter Pan. They took 2nd place this weekend and had a lot of fun.

The kids had sooo much fun swimming in the hotel pool! We also went and visited the grounds of the temple, the Jacob Hamblin home, and the site of the Mountain Meadow Massacre.

Each morning, Jon and Kendall went on a hike--they went to Snow Canyon and Gunlock.

Back to the pool....they had a hot tub (which was too hot in my opinion) and a pool that seemed a little too cold. Jenna would only stick her feet in one and then the other. She loved to just walk around and sit on the different pool chairs. Jarren prefered the hot tub.

The cool pool had a ledge most of the way around and he'd walk around that a bit too, but spent most of his time either sitting in or dangling his feet in the hot tub. Kristen and Kendall were fish! They swam and played around, not caring that it was cool.

My brother and his family ended up being down there as well (a surprise for us!) and we got together a couple of times. It was a very fun weekend!!

Conference packet

A friend of mine sent this link to me. It's a 15 page packet of General Conference activities for the kiddos. I just thought some of you might like to have some (or all) of these pages. Enjoy!

Conferenc...pdf (2029.3 KB)

April Fools!

I found this fun "dinner" idea and decided to try it. The mini chicken nuggets are really those chick-o-sticks, the mashed potatoes are vanilla ice cream with caramel "gravy," and the peas and carrots are cut up (and shaped) orange and green tootsie rolls. I didn't want the kids to fill up on sweets so I told them that Jon got mad at me for spending so much money on food and we were just going to have really small meals from now on. Well, Kristen took a bite of the "nugget," made a face, and said, "This tastes like peanut butter!" Kendall tried to spear a "nugget" on his fork and couldn't. I told him I guess I cooked them too long. He bit into it and spit it back out. Jenna kept dipping her fingers in the "gravy" and saying, "Mmmm!!!" Jarren ate his "mashed potatoes" and said, "Hey! This tastes like ice cream!" Quite the trick. I told them "April Fools!" and they laughed.

Kendall came home from school and told me that walking home the day before, he overheard this girl telling her friend that she liked a boy in their class so Kendall said, "If you like him so much, why don't you kiss him?" He said yesterday he got to school and his teacher pulled him out into the hall and told him the girl was mad he said that and that Kendall had to go to the principal's office. He had to do think time and write a paper on what he can do better next time and I needed to sign it. I start lecturing him on watching what you say and he looked at me funny and said, "Mom. APRIL FOOLS!!" I totally fell for that one!