Tuesday, May 26

Our weekend at the farm

For the weekend, we took off to my husbands parents farm in Colorado. I love it there (my kind of camping!! hehe), and it has been too long since we've visited the property. They have 80 acres of land, some for farming hay and the rest is what I call a maze of trees and red rocks. While we were there, it rained EVERY day, and so it was a very muddy mess. The kids loved it. Now for the pictures from the trip!

Here is a picture of the trailer, and the barn that my husbands dad built (upstairs is the livable space).

This is one of the views from the property. From here you can see 2 different mountain ranges.

This it my little one making friends with Freckles the lamb.

The ducks!! My father in law was working on increasing the size of the pond, so they hung out in the empty chicken coop. I only heard them referred to as Short and Fat, not sure if that's their true names ;). The kids had these water guns to play with, and had a lot of fun squirting them with irrigation water. he he. But they won't be alone much longer! My mom in law is getting a new batch of baby chickens this week. should be fun!

Ahhh..the 3 musketeers. My daughter and 2 of her cousins surrounded by the horses on the property. I believe this year they have 5 horses and 1 old donkey named Donna. They are really beautiful horses, some of them used to be racing horses. My husbands parents keep these horses on their property for a friend. My husband and I tried to feed them carrots...you'd think they'd like them but no, they don't. They don't like anything sweet like carrots, sugar cubes, or apples, they stick to their hay and grains. silly horses.

Hapi Mack! or Mack, Mack Attack, we came up with a lot of nicknames for the newest member of the farm. He is a really cute fun little Maltese dog that LOVES being on the farm. Mack likes to sneak under the wire fencing and torment the ducks, or run and jump under the horses. He is supposed to be white, but with the red dirt everywhere, he's changing his colors. ;)

Here are the cousins with their grandpa on the backhoe. They loved helping him on the farm.

I love this picture. :) It's my mom in law shooting our 22. She is an excellent shot. We all took turns shooting the cans. Ok ok ok, everyone but me got a turn. HA! Yeah....so my arms are a little too short to look in the scope just right AND to pull the trigger at the same time. so sad. my vertical challenges strike again. Guess I'll have to bring my little 22 the next time we visit the farm so I can have a little fun.

This is my little family on the farm four wheeler. It mainly helps get from one place to the next a lot faster. My husband took them on a ride up and down the path to the front gate. I think my oldest was driving ;)

I took this picture on our drive home. These HUGE windmills are at the opening of Spanish Fork Canyon. I don't know if they are doing a study or how long they've been there, but I thought they were amazing.

The trip was a lot of fun and relaxing. I can not wait until we can go back and visit the farm again. We only had one kid accident. My oldest has her mom's clumsiness--poor thing. She smashed her fingers (no adults present, so not sure on true story) and then somehow was on the floor and her face was all scratched up and now has a little black eye. Considering the size of the property and how the kids were going non-stop dusk to dawn, I think that's pretty good. :)

Thanks for letting us come down and visit mom and dad! We had a great time!

Thursday, May 21

They grow up way too fast

My oldest learned how to ride her bike without training wheels!!! We actually took them off last summer, but she wasn't really interested in trying until just now. She jumped on her bike and was determined. I think it helped that she had all her friends on their bikes cheering her on. Last weekend when her cousin was here, he jumped on her bike and taught himself how to ride without training wheels. I think that helped too. :) Once she was on riding her bike, then another kid in the circle wanted his training wheels off, and then another one. Fun night and I'm soo happy for my little girl! :)

Here is my neighbor running with my daughter in case she leaned too far and fell off.

And I had to include this CUTE picture of my youngest. :) that face is priceless.

Sunday, May 10

Birthday, Mothers Day, baby blessing all rolled into one...yipee!

What a day! I'll try to keep it short, but wanted to share a few pictures. Sunday, May 10th was not only Mother's Day, but it was also my birthday (Amy and Aunt Reba too!!), and little Alice's baby blessing. My morning started off bright and early in Woods Cross for the baby blessing, and then afterwards everyone went to Amy's house for a little party. EVERYONE. It was literally a blessing/birthday/mothers day party. I thought it was great, and it's always fun to see family together. My mom even made a 3 tiered fondant cake for our birthday, and just so everyone is clear, it's not lopsided, it's supposed to look like the layers are sliding off. I thought it turned out great for her first time making that kind of cake. A lot of pictures were taken at the party, unfortunately it wasn't my camera, so I'll hopefully add a few more pictures in a few days.

Afterwards I hurried home to be with my family for the rest of mom's day/birthday. They decided to give me a dozen beautiful purple roses and 3 red ones, one for each of them. Then they wanted to make me a cake. The girls picked out 2 flavors, strawberry and fun fetti, and then tried to swirl them together in bread pans. After the cake was cooked, we put one on top of the other and they frosted it (with little help) and put the candles on top. Someone tried to use a few trick candles..hehehe, but only ONE actually re-lit after I blew them out. Oh...you know who you are and just you wait until your birthday cake. ;) How many candles is that again?! wahaha. We laughed the entire time, I loved it. I had a really great day with my family.

I also want to mention a new toy I got for my birthday! My sisters and some family went in and got me a Wii Fit for my birthday present!! How fun is that?! I've always been interested in trying the game, and I never said anything about it. I guess Lisa can just read my mind. :) I LOVE IT! Thanks! I've only started trying it out, and so far it's got my attention, and I'm trying to open other games. I promise to keep at it, it should be a lot of fun!!

Sunday, April 19

Wicked, the musical

Saturday afternoon I was lucky enough to go and see the broadway musical WICKED. I just love the name. :) This is the best way I can describe the musical, it is the untold story of the wicked witch of the west and Glinda the good witch. Definitely a fun musical. It's bright, bold, colorful, and full of great music. Since we went to a matinee showing, they had 2 of the understudies performing, but they were fantastic, makes me wonder how good the original cast memeber would have been. Honestly, my favorite character to watch was Glinda the good witch. She was hilarious. Now you may be wondering how I got tickets?! I've been hearing from friends that they were really hard to come by in this city. Well, I'm lucky enough that my mom still gets her season tickets to the musicals at Capitol Theatre. AND my mom didn't get back from her honeymoon in St Lucia in time to go see it herself. So, she called me a couple weeks before and asked if I wanted 2 tickets. I've always wanted to see this musical, so how could I refuse? :) The book, Wicked, by Gregory Maguire, in comparison is COMPLETELY different. I read the book a few years ago and it's a very interesting tale of the Wicked Witch, Elphaba. Probably not my favorite book, but if you liked the musical and want to know what his story is really about, then you should at least try to read it. Just as a warning, the musical is a very feel good, happy play in comparison to the book. :) They are similar at some points, but sooo much of the story is untold, and I think more interesting.

Friday, April 17

Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince Trailer

I'm not sure how long this trailer has been out, but I just watched it this morning. Almost makes me want to read the book again, but I know if I do read the book right before I watch the movie, then I'll HATE the movie. So I'm going to wait until after I watch the movie to reread the book. I tend to actually enjoy the Harry Potter movies as long as I wait to reread the books until after. Anyway, here's the trailer for all that want to see it.

Sunday, April 12

Easter Day

Easter Day! I wish my girls would learn and appreciate the meaning of sleeping in on weekends. Oh well, we woke up and the girls put on their pretty Easter dresses that their Aunt Lisa made them. Didn't they turn out ADORABLE! These are by far my favorite so far. Lisa makes Easter dresses every year for my girls and I love it! Thank you for the beautiful dresses Lisa!
We hid little Easter baskets in the house, and then had an egg hunt in the front yard. I think I went a little overboard on the plastic eggs this year. =) The grass was covered, but the girls were so excited! When they finally came inside, they couldn't wait to open the eggs to see what surprise was waiting inside.
After a MUCH needed nap for my little one, I went on a long walk with my girls. I've been walking a lot in the last month with my neighbor Heather. If you're familiar with the area I live in, then you'll have an idea of what I'm talking about. We walk to the gas station for icees, or Smiths for a few groceries before we stop at a park to let our kids play. Anyway, I needed to return some redbox movies by Smiths, so I took the girls on a walk....kind of a long round-a-bout way to the park I wanted to go to. And guess what I found!! My little ones purple shoe that I lost last week from another walk. I lost this shoe the day after I bought it. Anyway, I was really excited and felt lucky. =) Here are my girls going down the slide at a little park. I love this park. It's perfect for small kids and it has swings! In my neighborhood we have a lot of parks, but only a handful have swings. The next best part of this walk was when I got home my husband had already grilled the yummy rosemary garlic pork. I had a lot of fun making food for Easter. I made Amy's yummy bow tie pasta with craisins and Brianna's poppy seed dressing, layered jell-o for the girls, and my husbands favorite cheesy potatoes. Lots of left-overs!To end a nice Easter Sunday we went to Baskin Robbins for ice cream. =) Definitely a fun filled family weekend. The next few weeks will hopefully slow down.

Easter Weekend

Wow it's been a busy week and a fun weekend. When I went to visit Amy Friday afternoon, I was finally able to hold Alice!! New babies are so cute and tiny. No I'm not baby hungry. I'm enjoying this stage of loving and holding babies, but in the end handing them back to their mom. =) I love the name Alice (she did not get the name from Twilight, it's actually a family name). Did I mention that my cousin Anna was able to watch the c-section?? she's in nursing school and got the OK to watch the whole thing. I thought that was really neat, but I don't know if I could stomach it. Anyway...Amy and Alice are home and doing well!

Here's a picture of me and Alice Lynn.
I HAD to share this picture. =) My husband brought home a surprise treat Friday night. This is a little slice of heaven. Raspberry Almond Torte from Market Street. soooo yummmy. He tells me that I got for putting up with his stressful week at work.
Then Friday night we colored eggs with the girls! They had a lot of fun. Both girls helped in coloring! and only a few egg casualties from prodding fingers.
Saturday morning we jumped in the car and headed North to a place called Kangaroo Zoo to meet my dad and his little family. This place is filled with the fun animal themed inflatables. My oldest LOVED it, and it took my baby about an hour to understand what was going on and then she was running all over the place. All but a handful of the pictures I took were fuzzy. Here's a picture of the alligator that the little kids were nervous about at first when my husband pulled down on the teeth and it looked like the alligator was chomping down on them. hahaha. It was funny until someone cried.
Here's a picture of my dad and my oldest. They usually don't advise adults to go on the inflatables, but I think all of us did anyway. =) All the adults had fun chasing the little kids up and down the inflatables. Thanks for a great afternoon dad!

Thursday, April 9

Amy has another little girl!

Amy went into labor a day early!
Alice was born Wednesday April 8, 2009.
She was 7lbs 10oz.
Alice is sooo stinkin cute! I was only able to see her through the nursery window this morning, but hopefully tomorrow I will be able to hold her. :) Amy is exhausted, but doing really well! She's up and moving and I wouldn't be surprised if she went home earlier than the recommended time to stay in the hospital. Amy's older kids, Braden and Mylee, already LOVE their little sister Alice and always want to check on her in the nursery. I HAD to add this pictures. It's one of my favorites of Braden :). My kids and Amy's kids are checking on little Alice through the nursery glass. You can kinda see Alice through their reflections. :)
Congratulations Amy and Randy!

Tuesday, April 7

My Mom's Wedding

Tonight my mom married Howard Childs. April 7th is the 5 yr anniversary from when they first met. My mom had a small wedding at her home in Sandy. I think more people showed up than she was counting on, but that's a good feeling. =) The wedding was nice, and my mom looked gorgeous like always. Unfortunately I didn't take many pictures, but here's what I have (and borrowed from Amy!).
My mom and her twins. =)

Here's her beautiful wedding cake.

This is Amy putting up with me and my need to take a picture with her =) It's fun! and it'll be the last time I see her before she has her beautiful baby. Wouldn't that have been funny if her water broke before or during the wedding?? but the baby has her own schedule (or until the csection Thursday night).

good luck Aim!

*I had to add this. hehehe. Lisa had this as her facebook status and it made me laugh, but an interesting fact. Here's what she had as her status:

Did I mention my mom got married yesterday? Ya. I now have 2 sisters, 3 half siblings and 5 step-siblings. It's like a chia-family. Just add wedding, water and watch it grow

Wednesday, April 1

Celebrity Twins

This started when my husband came home and asked if I knew if a certain celebrity was a twin. I had no idea, but it got me curious, so I looked online. You may not be interested, but I wanted to share some of the celebrities that I found out were in fact twins (identical or fraternal). I did not include famous celebrity twins like the Olsen twins, or the Sprouse twins from Disney. I wanted to find twins that were not well known. I know their are more, but these are the ones that I am familiar with. (this is NOT an April Fools Joke)

Alanis Morrissete has a twin brother Wade

Ashton Kutcher has a fraternal brother Michael.

Elvis Presley had a twin brother, Jesse,

who died at birth.

Supermodel Gisele Bundachen has a fraternal

twin sister Patricia.

John Heder from Napolean Dynamite has an

identical twin Daniel.

Joseph Fiennes has a fraternal twin brother Jacob.

Justin Timberlake had a twin sister,

but she died at birth.

Kiefer Sutherland has a twin sister Rachel.

Linda Hamilton has an identical twin sister Leslie.

Nicholas Brendon, from Buffy, has an

identical brother Kelly Donovan.

Scarlett Johansson has a twin brother Hunter.

Vin Diesel has a fraternal brother Jacob.