As promised, some pictures

From our Christmas party, the fabulous, horrible sweaters!


The whole family getting into Guitar Hero 4. My mom was even dancing. And we got her to sing once. She got so into it that she hit a button and stopped the song, ha ha.







Asher loved the microphone. He carried this spare one around with him and "sang" all the time.



We all had a blast with the Wii fit. The second pic is of my mom cracking up at Tim as he tried to do the exercises and it measured his BMI.



Overall, it was a lot of fun. Asher was grandpa's little buddy. He ran around the house saying his name the whole time, much to my dad's delight.

Christmas

I have been so lazy lately.

We had our Christmas party on the 20th. It was a lot of fun. I had a prize for the worst Christmas sweater, so it was fun to have people show up in theirs. Even though not everyone participated, it was still a good time. We had good food, lots of fun people and family there, and did the usual gift exchange. My brother came from Idaho, and my cousin was there for a bit. I have a picture of the sweaters, but I will have to post it later because the camera is all the way over on the bookcase right now.

We came up to Idaho on Christmas Eve, thankfully managing to avoid every single snow storm on the way. It's been a pretty fun week. I am awesome at vocals on Guitar Hero and Rock Band. We also got some awesome pictures of my dad and even my mom playing with us. My brother got me a Wii fit, which may just be the best present I have ever gotten. (I tend to always get overlooked or gypped somehow) Now I just need to save up the rest of the money I need to get my Wii I have Matt holding for me at Blockbuster. I am trying to get it without Tim knowing, so without using the bank account. Which is a little difficult when you don't have a job, lol. Only about $100 to go though, woo hoo! Anyway, it has been a lot of fun watching the various people in my family try to play on the fit. My mom got a real kick out of it, especially when it told her she was at a normal weight. The mean old thing called me obese, so I'm not reslly sure how I'm feeling about it anymore.

We head back home tomorrow, as soon as we are able to pack up and leave. Then, Tim returns to work on friday, but only has to be there until noon. He's had a nice little vacation.

Also, I can now officially say that I am pregnant. We told my parents when we got here so we can now officially tell everyone else. I just calculated my due date and I am officially due on July 21st. I go see my doctor in a couple of weeks for my 12 week appointment and will get to see and hear the heartbeat. I will feel much better once I know for sure that there is only one baby in there. Mara started saying a couple of months ago that she has twin sisters that aren't here yet, before she knew I was pregnant. So I am a little freaked out about that.

Other than that...nothing really. I will post some pictures of all the funtivities when I get them off my camera.

Winter fun

It has been a while since I posted. There isn't much to say, so I am just going to post some pictures I have taken this week. I finally have a camera. I bought it used from a friend. It's not my dream camera (oh, to have an extra $600, lol) but it works.
We took advantage of the snow and decided to go play in it. Here are my two kids, and Starr, a girl I watch during the day, all bundled up and ready to go play.


Having fun in the snow




Mara loves to make snow angels. :) They had a lot of fun. Asher wasn't sure what to make of it, but I think he started to enjoy himself after a little while. If I were to take him out right now, I'm not sure he would be able to walk, there is so much snow out there.

Today, the girls and I made a gingerbread train while Asher napped. I cheated and just bought a kit, but it was still fun. Monday we are making candy houses with graham crackers.

One of those days

Yes moms. You know what that means. Yesterday was one of those days. My kids were downstairs in the playroom. Not unusual. They usually play there for about 15 minutes in the morning after they wake up until the girl I watch gets here. I was in my room and I hear Asher start screaming crying. I ask Mara why he was crying and she said it was because he probably got thorns in his feet.
ME: What do you mean he has thorns in his feet?
It's about here I realize that his feet and hands are red and freezing.
ME: Why are his hands cold??
MARA: Because he was outside.
ME: What do you mean he was outside??
MARA: We were outside playing.
ME: How did you get outside??
MARA: We climbed through the window.
ME: WHAT?? It's freezing outside!!! You climbed through the window?? Brother's hands and feet are FREEZING!
MARA: Well, I put gloves on.

So she took the time to put boots and gloves on herself, maybe a coat. But they were out there for who knows how long (although it couldn't have been THAT long. I'm not negligent.) The playroom is in the basement. The window is by the ceiling. She constructed a tower of sorts on top of the couch to climb up and out of the window, helping Asher get out too. They played outside for a bit before climbing back IN the window.

So that was the morning, all before 9. Then they were just wired, Asher especially. Running around like chickens with their heads cut off. Fast forward to later, when Asher wakes up from his nap. Usually he comes out of his room by himself, but instead he was crying. I go in and there is a poopy diaper on the floor and Asher is standing by the door shivering. He took his diaper off, went back to sleep on the floor and then peed and started to shiver because he got cold. Seriously??

Then the rest of my day was spilled drinks (4 of them!!), crying, fighting, tattling, and just extreme neediness. I was about ready to lose my mind.

Blah. I haven't been posting anything because it's so boring without pictures, and my camera doesn't work. We have just been kind of hanging out at the house, spending time together when Tim comes home. Nothing really exciting. I am not really looking forward to Christmas, as it is shoved down my throat before Halloween even gets here. I haven't even decorated yet and I don't really want to.

I survived the five

Jen's older girls didn't have school today so I had all of her three and my two. I was honestly a little worried, but it was actually so nice. They were so well behaved. We cut out Halloween cookies which we will decorate tomorrow, and then I made them a nice hot lunch of beenie weenies (that's what my mom called them when I was a kid.) It was a lot of fun.

Also, last night Matt and I had pre screener tickets to a movie, which is kind of our thing to do. The movie was at Gateway and then we walked around and showed him the train station thing in the mall, which is so cool. Then he took me out to dinner for my birthday. It was actually a lot of fun. Now I know he can come up with a fun date, I need to get him a girl. :)

Now I am just dealing with my chitlins since Tim comes home late tonight. They are being pretty well behaved. Asher should go to bed relatively soon since he skipped his nap (again). We are going to go upstairs soon and have quesidillas for dinner, put Asher to bed and then probably clean the playroom. And that's my day..:)

Meanest mom in the world?

I just locked my kids in their room until Tim comes home. Should I feel bad?

Catching up

So the weekend was good. Friday Tim and I went out to Rodizio Grill for my birthday and my cousin Jacob watched the kids, which went surprisingly well. I was expecting Asher to freak, because he can get clingy. After dinner we came back and Tim, Jacob, and I attempted to play three hand pinochle all on our own. I think we did it mostly right. Saturday afternoon we had a family baptism, so that was fun. Tim's cousin's daughter just turned 8. Mara enjoyed spending time with her cousins and had a lot of fun. (actually, she has been baptizing her Barbies all morning, lol) Saturday night was Bunco. Sandra and I were ONE loss away from getting our money back. Oh well. I was in charge of bringing the candy for Bunco. I ended up grabbing the "people feeder" I made because it had candy in it and I thought I had had more to take. But a girl at Bunco ended up asking if she could buy three of them for me, so that was fun. I like knowing that my stuff is cool enough that people want to buy it from me. I also got a message from another person on my mommies board saying she was interested in buying three or four of them as well, so I may be spending another day painting.
Sunday was my birthday and church, so nothing exciting really happened there. Deb was a sweetheart and made me a cake, which tasted delicious. That was sweet, because I can't remember the last time I had a birthday cake, except for the ice cream one I bought for myself a few years ago.
Monday was a holiday so Tim was home, which was nice. We went to hunt down birdhouses for me to paint. We hit a little snafu when Mara upchucked in grandma's car, but I think we handled it well. I was sitting next to her in the back. She had said earlier that her tummy was sick. I think she was hungry and grandma is sort of a crazy driver, so I think she got carsick. But we got her cleaned up and bought her some new clothes and everything was fine. After that, we all went out to dinner, so it was a pretty nice day.
Yesterday, I survived 5 kids ages 5 and under. I always have my two and now I am watching my friend's daughter Starr. A girl from my ward called and asked if I could watch her two for a couple pf hours. It wasn't so bad. The kids had a lot of fun playing together and I didn't have to yell once. :)
Right now I am just listening to the girls play happily. Matt and I are going to a free movie screening tonight, which is our new "thing."
And that was pretty much our weekend. :)

My craftiness

I have had a huge surge of craftiness lately and have just been going crazy. I am even going to make Halloween curtains. I am all decorated and just keep doing more. I'm loving it! Here are some pictures. They are taken with my phone, so they aren't perfect and don't do some of the items justice, but I'll show them anyway.

My wreath. The purple bats go all the way around, they are kind of only showing up on the bottom portion, and there are also googly eyes that don't show up well in the picture.



My spooky tree, not the best picture..



The Boo sign. I just painted and glittered this


I know it's sideways but I'm not going to bother fixing it.

My "people feeder"




And I think I am most proud of my banner. This is the first thing I have ever really just made without directions or a picture or anything. I just wanted a banner that said Happy halloween so I made one.

Uneventful

Not much has been going on. I am so excited for October and Halloween this year. I have already pretty much finished decorating. I have also gone craft carazy. (Yes, I meant to spell it that way.) I have painted a couple of unfinished wood decorations, made a wreath, which is awesome and I love, and some other stuff. I am also in the process of making this cute Halloween banner. I will have to take pictures of it all. I am also kind of excited for my birthday, but my birthday usually sucks (for as long as I can remember) so I don't really get my hopes up. And Tim tends to forget or not plan really well. Even though I programmed several reminders into his phone, and I even told him that I wanted a party because I have NEVER had one before, but knowing him we will probably not really do anything. He tends to wait until the last minute and then he wants to go out but we don't have a sitter. Oh well. I don't really have any expectations so I guess it can't be a disappointment. My kids will make it fun.

That's really about it. It was a very uneventful weekend. Just went to the store and mostly hung out together at home. I do have a meeting tonight for the trunk or treat I am planning. I think that will be fun.

What a fun weekend!

What a nice weekend we had. On friday, my dad had a doctor's appointment here in town so he stayed the night. I made yummy chicken burritos (soo good!) and we had my cousin Jacob come over too. Jacob moved here from Iowa about a year ago. We didn't get to see each other much when we were kids since we moved around a lot and lived overseas. It's nice to have him close by. He's a fun guy, and Tim really likes him, so that's good. The two of them are actually going to a movie on thursday. Anyway, so we had dinner and talked Jacob into playing pinochle with us. It was really a lot of fun. We stayed up late playing cards.

Saturday we went to Thanksgiving Point. The corn maze was only $1 with this coupon I had, and it included entrance into the whole thing. There was a kiddie area, a bouncy thing, gemstone mining.

Here is all of us sitting in a giant rocking chair.








Mara in the princess carriage.




Asher resting on the bouncy bubble.

I wish I had more and better pictures. These were taken with my phone. I desperately want a new, nice camera. The one I have has been a big dissapointment. I want one of the nice Nikons, or a Cannon. I would love to take lots of pictures of my kids and family and do cool editing stuff and photography junk. Anyway, lol, off subject.

Oh Also, Grandpa bought us all Utah sweatshirts. :) So nice. Asher looks absolutely adorable in a hoodie, and Mara loves her pink sweatshirt, and Tim and I have cool black ones.

I also got a new kitchen table, which I love. It's huge, and comes with two leaves (one I have in) and can get all the way up to 7ft. Our last one was just a little pressed wood one that my parents bought in 1986. Ha ha! It needs a little bit of work, so I am going to try to learn how to refinish it, but it is a good, sturdy table, with benches instead of chairs. It takes up quite a bit more space, but I think I am ok with it, and it just feels so nice and homey sitting at it.

Oh well, nevermind...

I went to the meeting tonight for the model search. We were selected to be participants in The Great American Model and Talent Search. They basically have a big convention of casting directors, fashion photographers and stuff, and you take your kid and they meet the people and get their pictures taken, and from there you see if they get any work. Only problem is, it is almost $700 to register, and they want at least $300 of it before tomorrow. Sounds fishy, but I don't feel that it is. i don't feel like typing out all the details of it, but there are everal valid reasons. It is substantially cheaper than it would normally cost for an opportunity to be in a room full of casting people, but we won't be doing it. As much as I would love to go and it would be fun if it was just me and Mara hanging out and staying in a hotel, we can't do that. Oh well, because I am pretty sure she has a good shot of getting at least a couple of jobs out of something like that. Sigh, if I only had a couple hundred dollars, lol. And we don't use credit cards otherwise I might actually consider using it.

Other people thing my kids are cute, too!

Lol. We took the kids to this open casting call/model and talent search, just for fun yesterday. Once we got there and started (even a little bit before), I was just convinced that Asher was going to get in, because that kid is just the smiliest, sweetest, happiest little guy. Mara was being a little weird so I figured she really didn't have a shot. We get done and they come back in to give the kids that they want to come back a paper, and Mara was actually picked! I think had we gone earlier in the day, Asher would have gotten in, but we had to wait for Tim to get home from work. By the time they were talking to and looking at Asher, he was hungry, and getting tired, and just wanted to get down and play. I know they thought he was adorable as far as looks go (I heard both of the people say it) but as far as the qualities and characteristics they were looking for, like being passive and mellow, a kid that will be good on long boring shoots and sets, he didn't seem to fit that. I can totally understand that, he was being a bit fussy. Some of the parents seemed really pissed, and seemed to take it personally, like the guy was calling their kid ugly. He reiterated several times that he is hired to look for certain traits (I'm sure like mood, personality, how the kid would photograph)but they still seemed to get upset. It was kind of funny. It seemed like quite a few of the parents there were just trying to get their kids famous and ride them to Hollywood, you know. We just kind of went for fun, and Mara was excited about it. I personally think my kids are adorable, as everyone thinks about their own kid, and I thought they had a good shot so I'm glad we went. I go back tonight to watch an informative video about the process, and then we think they will have Mara come back for a screen test. Fun!

Hmm..

It magically fixed itself.

Crap.

I was trying to do like a layout on my blog and accidently erased the whole template code so I have nothing on here anymore. It irritates me that there I can't figure out why it won't work...

I am so freakin' excited!

I even changed my text color to orange, this is how jazzed I am.

I have been on the activities committee for my ward for over three years now. I actually had Sister Moffat comment to me today. She was the activities committee leader when I got on and she said she couldn't belive I was still on there. We are on the second person to do the job since her, and here I still am. The past year or so of events have pretty much been a large chunk of me. The Trunk or Treat for this year is pretty much ALL me. And I am getting very excited. I love Halloween. Between the ward party and the one Deb and I are going to throw (yes, Deb, let's do it!)I get to do lots of fun stuff and I just can't stand the wait. Halloween for me is starting the first week of October. I get all hot and bothered when I happen to accidently crosss paths with the Halloween baking supplies and crafts. I got a cookie embosser the other day with Halloween patterns and I can't wait to use it. My mother in law got me these cute mini cake pans last year I haven't gotten to use yet. Lots of stuff! Anyway, I'm getting sidetracked and excited about it again.

For the trunk or treat...We are doing a Halloween carnival thing. We are having a mad scientist/autopsy room, ghost bowling, guess the number of googly eyes, graveyard cakewalk, mummy wrap up relay, musical "scares" which is musical chairs but it will be...decorated. :) Put the wart on the witch, where the kids get to chew bubble gum and then try to put the "wart" on the witch, and a craft. And the funnest part is all the ideas were mine, I have been running the meetings, I'm buying all the stuff and telling everyone how I want it put together. :D I realize that it may sound like I'm bossy, but the past couple activities were still my idea, but the leader would pretty much still tell me what she wanted and I didn't have full creative license. But now I am running the show and the new activites keader is fine with letting me, she encourages it. :) It is just going to turn out great. It's making me consider being a party planner. I think I'd be good at that. I will be sure to get lots of pictures of how my event turns out, even though it is over a month away...

April's recommendations

Things you need to watch. I keep forgetting movies I think are great that people need to see, so I'll just let you know.

First, Dr. Horrible's sing-a-long blog. This is just hilarious. Neil Patrick Harris sings in this little mini musical. Joss Whedon (Firefly, Buffy the Vampire Slayer)wrote and directed it. The music and lyrics are just amazing, (check out the song by Dr. Horrible in Act 3. I think it's my fave.) and the actors are so funny. Joss Whedon just decided to do this project during the writer's strike. It is three acts that are about 15 minutes long. You can see them on youtube.

Secondly, while we're on the subject of Neil Patrick Harris, you should be watching How I Met Your Mother. That show is sooo funny. They carry jokes so well, the writing is funny, and the actors are great. You should be watching.

Season premieres are coming up. The Office is next thursday. How I Met Your Mother is on monday. Pushing Daisies is October 1st. You should be watching these shows, or at least renting the dvd's and starting to watch them. That's how I usually do it. Matt and I just started 30 Rock, which we really like so far.

Death at a Funeral. Matt and I watched this the other day. Hilarious.

That's all I have for now. :)

I am not cleaning this playroom AGAIN. I absolutely refuse.

And there go allll the movies. *Sigh*

I have a meeting tonight for the ward activities committee. I am in charge of the funhouse we are doing this year. I am actually kind of excited. The committee leader actually calls me a "creative genius." It makes me giggle. My mom isn't crafty and we never did crafty stuff when I was a kid. I just assumed it was genetic. But I guess I do kind of come up with neat stuff. Speaking of, I have had some demand for my tileboards, so I am going to sell them. Quite a few people on my mommies board have shown interest in ordering them, especially as Christmas presents coming up. So that will be fun. I like making them and it gives me an excuse where I have to, and it'll be nice to earn some money while I do it.





Tomorrow my friend Jen is going to bring her daughter Starr over and she's going to play with us for the day. We are excited. Jen started working so she needs a place for Starr so we're going to see how the day and commute and all goes. Maybe it will be permanent. Mara is looking forward to it. It will be nice to have her.

So we'll see how the rest of the day goes. (the kids got up at about 4:30 and just started playing and giggling. We seperated them and they finally went back to sleep but I am hoping it didn't ruin naptime. And they are making such a mess today. I have to shower and clean and get dinner in the crockpot. Oh crap. I forgot I was doing that. I'd better go.)

So I got a lot done today. I am having bunco at the house tomorrow so I needed to make sure that stuff is clean and actually stays clean. A couple hours with my ipod on and I was in the zone. It's so clean. Tim was impressed. I keep telling him all I need is for Hurricane Asher to be out of my way and I can whip everything in shape pretty quickly. But Bunco should be interesting. 15 women at my house. I'm actually a little nervous. I don't do women very well. I am so much more comfortable in a crowd of guys. So it should be fun to have them all here. I told Matt I may have to come over when I am done to recuperate. And sunday is stake conference so we are going to go do some fun outdoor family activity, because I think my poor children have forgetten what the sun looks like.

I think the reason I don't keep up with my blog is that we just don't do anything exciting. Sad, but true. The kids are a little wired up from being stuck in the house for so long. The van is still broken down so while Tim is at work we are stuck here, and I think it is beginning to take its toll on everyone. But I am bound and determined to do something this weekend, and maybe I'll even remember to take pictures.

I have finally entered the blogosphere

I have finally decided to enter the world of blogging. I'm not sure how much I'll actually update it, but I will try. Nothing really exciting to post yet, but I just wanted to get it set up. Woo hoo! :)