Easter Craft

I thought it would be fun to do a little Easter craft with the kids while Dan was at the Priesthood Session of conference last night .

Alaina and I found this craft in the Family Fun Magazine last week. She really wanted to try it out so this ended up being our Easter Craft of choice.

We started by hanging balloons from the ceiling and then cut our tissue paper into little squares.

The kids dipped the colored tissue paper into a flour-water mixture and then smoothed it onto their balloon.

After several layers of tissue paper, computer paper, then tissue paper again, they were done.

This craft was definatly messier than expected!

The balloons ended up taking overnight and most of the next day to dry. It was a beautiful day today so we ended up hanging them outside during conference to finish drying.

Tonight we were able to finish up our eggs. The kids favorite part of making this was the popping of the balloon. They thought it was pretty cool that their egg held its shape even after they popped the balloon and pulled it out of a tiny hole in their easter egg.

Next we cut an opening in each of their eggs.

Then decorated the outside and filled the inside with a little Easter scene.

The kids had lots of fun making this craft! They plan on giving them away to someone special before Easter.

Here are the kid's finished Eggs!

How to avoid the Spring Break crowds...

...it's pretty easy, you simply plan a trip to a location where you have the opportunity to do tons of outdoor, summer like, activities. Somewhere like the Spokane Riverfront Park (you know... carnival rides, feeding the ducks, gondola ride, IMAX, miniature golf, train ride, carousel, snow cones etc.). But the trick is to go do all those fun outdoor summertime activities on a day like this...

Snowing in April...What?? Seriously??

I totally did not anticipate this kind of weather. When planning for this little out of town day trip one of the first things I did was get online and check the weather. It read mid 50's with o% chance of precipitation. Hows that for a weatherman's accuracy! 

The snow got a little cold, but was great for crowd control. We didn't see another family there all day. We had the whole park to ourselves. 

Between my sister and I we had 9 kids at the park today so the weather ended up working in our favor in that we had no lines, a theater to ourselves, and the kids were able to run wild and free with no one else to worry about disturbing.

A few of today's highlights...

Riding the Gondola over the Spokane Falls

Taking the Train around Riverfront Park. 

Feeding the Ducks... and Seagulls. The kids were impressed that the seagulls could catch bread in mid air.

Riding on the Carnival Rides, over and over until they were sick.

We went inside for a while to get warm and watch the IMAX movie. After the movie the kids played a few video games and went miniature golfing.

Our trip wouldn't have been complete without a visit to the big Red Wagon.

And who can forget the Garbage Goat. There is a button on a rock that you push which starts the suction/vacuum pressure in the goats mouth and then you  can feed it your garbage or sticks or anything you want. The kids always have a lot of fun with this.

We visited the carousel several times today. The kids had a lot of fun on this ride because it goes really fast and you get to reach WAY out and try to grab rings as you're riding. They wanted to ride it again and again to try and get a larger number of rings each time.   

 We had a blast in Spokane! Thanks for hanging with us Les!

The kids and I have been having lots of fun together this week during spring break. I love it when the kids are out of school. We get to decide our own schedule, and with school out, that means soccer, scouts, mutual, activity days, and piano is out for this week also. It has been sweet! We have mostly been staying close to home but find one extra fun thing to do each day. We have gone swimming at the Court Club, Gymnastics, Children's Museum, Library and then a picnic at the Park, and tomorrow is our movie theater day. Super fun hanging with the kids.

Happy Spring Break! 

Sunday Naps

Tonight we sat down to have family home evening. It was my turn for the lesson and I chose to show a 20 minute movie about the Easter story and the life of Christ. When I clicked on the lights at the end of the movie, this is what Dan's end of the couch looked like.

I think someone missed their nap today :)

The Business Gets a Blower

Today Dan and the kids went outside to do a little "spring cleaning" in the yard.

Dan had a new toy to help with all of the leaves and debris. 

With each chunk of money that  comes in this spring from Dan's lawn and landscape business Dan gets to buy one more piece of equipment for his business. This weeks purchase was a blower. Ky had fun trying it out. You should have seen it. Talk about FUNNY. The machine weighs as much as he does and blows air out at about 200 miles per hour. NO, SERIOUSLY.....200 miles per hour!!!

He would pull the trigger and then go for a ride. The thing about knocked him on his butt a few times and blew him in circles another couple. Good Times! 

"For the first time in my life, I feel...WICKED"

This weekend Dan and I went to Wicked. It was awesome! As you probably know from my other posts we totally love going to Broadway  or off Broadway shows. Wicked came highly recommended and we weren't let down. 

About a year ago when we picked the tickets up in the first place we decided to buy a few extra tickets and pawn them off on some friends. The Despains, Madders, and Kissells all took advantage of the tickets and together the eight of us made a weekend vacation out of it. (Thanks for getting us such great seats Dad. Front and Center!) 

Our weekend started Friday morning 9am in the Despains driveway. The 8 of us split up in 2 cars and caravaned to Portland. 53 potty breaks later we arrived at our first shopping destination in Portland. The Washington Square Mall. We spent a few hours shopping and then hit the Cheesecake Factory for dinner. Yummy!  Next stop, the Portland Temple for an evening session, then back to our hotel to eat our leftover cheesecake desserts and play some card games until we were ready to crash.

With no kids tagging along we all agreed that sleeping in was a must. When 9am rolled around we grudgingly drug ourselves out of bed to meet up with the crew for a killer day of fun. We started Saturday out at the Woodburn Outlet Mall and then drifted back up to Portland for our play. 

Wicked started off great and ended even better. The music was awesome and the story line was so much fun. This is one of the best plays we have seen and I cant wait to go to it again some time in the future. 

We chose to eat at the macaroni grill for dinner and then plugged on home to round out our weekend. 

It was so much fun. The friends we went with were so much fun and we totally enjoyed the activities we ended up doing. Thanks for all the laughs!

Lets do it again!! How about......this weekend. 

Ridgeview Elementary Extravaganza

Tonight was the Extravaganza at the kid's elementary school. Each of them made a project to put on display and were very excited to show it off. All 3 kids new exactly what they wanted to do their projects on and did most all of the work themselves. It was nice that they wanted to do their projects on things they had been studying in class, this saved mom and dad from doing a lot of topical research with them since they already knew the content of their subject.

(Instead of keeping all of these 3 foot by 4 foot posters I decided to take a few pics and display them on my blog as a keepsake for them :)

Alaina chose to do her project on Water and wrote a 5 paragraph essay on the cycle of water. She thought it was so cool that we could actually be drinking the same water that a dinosaur had walked in millions of years ago due to the  cycle of water.  She came up with the idea to give fun word scrambles and water coloring pages as handouts. 

Ky brought home this viking ship, he had made at school, about a month ago. He was excited to do his extravaganza project on Vikings because his 3rd grade class just got done with this unit. He knew all about famous vikings, their ships, the food they ate, weapons, and armor. Ky thought it was pretty cool to find out that vikings used cow horns as their drinking cups.

It wasn't mandatory for Hailey to do an extravaganza project this year but because her older brother and sister were doing one she really wanted to do one too. She chose to do her project on art. Crayola Art to be exact. We did a lot of different art projects with crayons. A few of her favorite art projects were melting old crayons together to make new rainbow crayons, making a rainbow snow globe with crayon shavings and making sun catchers by melting crayon shavings between wax paper. 

Great job guys! Your projects turned out awesome! Can't wait to see what you come up with next year.

Hailey's 7th B-Day Party Hapenings

Happy Birthday to my Big 7 Year Old!!!

Hailey chose to have her birthday at Garland's gymnastics this year. This is a family favorite birthday party venue. It is one giant play ground for kids with rings, ropes, trampolines, zip lines, swings, and a bounce house. 

As the birthday girl she got to demonstrate all of the gymnastic activities for the other kids before the party started. Everyone had a ton of fun on all of the gym equipment.

Here's all of the crazy kids at Hailey's party gathered around to watch Hailey go on the birthday bungee!!

For those who don't know, or haven't been, the birthday girl always gets to strap into the bungee thing. The other kids get to cheer her on, but only she gets to bounce to the ceiling.  She did back flips, frog hops, and her favorite... the sling shot.

We love you Hailey! We hope you had a fantastic day and wish you a magical year. 

Hudson's Rippy's and Bink

The dreaded day has finally come. 

Time to get rid of Hudson's Pacifier, and his favorite blanket (commonly referred to as his "rippy's" because of how ripped, tattered, and torn it is.)

He loves them dearly and has grown very attached to them these last 2 years.

Here is the proper way to use a pacifier and a fuzzy soft blanket, according to Hudson Jax...

He even schooled his teddy bear in the proper pacifier and blanket bedtime routine.

The rips in his rippy grew...

and grew...

and GREW!

These last few weeks I think Hudson could sense the time for rippy's and bink's was coming to an end. So he went on overload  and enjoyed every last minute with them.

Good bye old friends, you'll be missed!

11 years, and loving it!

Hey Stace,

I know today may feel like any other ordinary Saturday, for you, with my busy schedule and the kids sports and our other family activities that are planned, but I just wanted to take a minute before our day starts to tell you Happy Anniversary.

I am so happy to have shared these last 11 years with you. You are my best friend. I’ve been thinking about how much I’ve been working lately and how busy I’ve been and how much I miss you. I have grown to love going on 2-3 dates a week with you. Seriously, how many couples get that kind of one on one time? I love it… every minute of it. I love talking with you about our lives, our kids, our goals, our faith, our frustrations, and all the rest. If I could choose any one person on this earth to just hang out with, and be best friends with, I would choose you. Everytime!

It has been really fun for me to be married to you and to grow our eternal family one child at a time. The blessings pour into my life in ways that fascinate me. I don’t necessarily know what I did in this life or the life before, to deserve you and what you have given me, but I am grateful to be the receiver of so much goodness.

I love your “LOVE”. I notice DAILY what you are doing for me. I know you work so hard at motherhood, wifehood, business helper-hood, and all the other "hoods". I am constantly amazed at how you display your love and commitment to me. You always have been that way, and I assume you always will be. I can’t tell you how much I LOVE your LOVE, and how you show it.

I have to acknowledge you at a spiritual level too. I love and appreciate your efforts to keep the scripture reading going on the days I am not there. The family home evenings and lessons, the lessons on service by your personal example… they are all noticed by me and are appreciated by me. The attributes that you display are exactly what our Father in Heaven has asked us to do. And you do it so well. Thank you for your strength, and your testimony.

You are looked up to by so many people. You are adored by your children and loved endlessly by me.

I have loved these last 11 years that we have spent together. I hope that as you look back, your memories are as fond as mine are. I wouldn’t trade any of it for anything. I adore you and thank you for blessing my life with your LOVE and your SMILE.

Forever Yours,
Dan


P.S. I can’t wait to take you to Portland next weekend for a real Anniversary Celebration. It will be nice to get away and finally be able to spend some quality time together. Love ya Babe!

I feel old...

It's official, I finally feel old. I can't believe I'm already here. Aren't our 30's suppose to be "thirty, flirty, and thriving?" 

I remember being a little kid, with a TON of energy, being raised by my mom who was in her thirties. She seemed sooooooo old to me at that age. She was always so tired, had headaches, and constantly wanted to take a nap. Ahhhh, but, now I am beginning to understand...

Not a day goes by that I don't wake up unrefreshed, feeling like I have slept on a pile of rocks all night, and then ran over by a semi truck. My body aches, my head pounds, I feel swollen all over, I am sooooooo tired, and at some point throughout each day I always think to myself "I need a NAP!" 

But it doesn't stop there. I not only feel old and tired, I am starting to look old and tired. Notice the evidence below in Exhibit A and Exhibit B.  

Each day I ask myself a few questions, predictably....

Holy Dark Circles and bags!?!? How can I make those go away? Where did all of those freckles, age spots, and moles come from? When did I start getting wrinkles? Where have my eyelashes disappeared to???

With how I have been feeling lately, I was pretty sure I must have cancer or some other life threatening illness. (How else to explain the feelings, the pain, the digestive track problems, 2 miscarriages, the headaches, and the tiredness.) But, after a few doctor appointments and check-ups that all came back fairly positive, it's all starting to sink in... I'm not dying... I'm just getting "OLD"! 

Crap! Seriously! Ugh!

So, where do I go from here? I have got to believe it can only get better. I hope it can't get any worse anyway. My mom is now in her fifties and seems to have more energy and looks way better than I do in my thirties so at least I have that to look forward to.  

I want my old self back; that's for dang sure!

February Dates with Dad

The kids each had a fun date with Dan this month. On Valentines Day the girl's went out to breakfast with Dan and then to Lowes to one of their "Build and Grow" free Kids Clinics.

The girl's had a lot of fun building this jewelry box with their Dad on Valentines day!

This morning the boys had their turn with Dan. They also went out to breakfast and then to Lowes to build one of these awesome race cars. The boys sure love those tools, but even more then that, they LOVE spending time with their Dad! 

What cute little builders with their aprons and goggles :)

Miss Young Women's Valuable Pageant

We had a super fun New Beginnings tonight with our Young Women. 

We held a 

Miss Young Women's "Valuable" Pageant.

(We had 8 girls to represent our 8 different values) 

The Lovely Contestants

There was Francine Faith, Darlene Divine Nature, Isabelle Individual Worth, Nelly Knowledge, Chaney Choice & Accountability, Gracelyn Good Works, Izzie Integrity, and Vivian Virtue.

We dressed the girls in the latest fashions of course :) Our very own prom dresses from the eighties, along with one golden chair cover with neck and arms holes cut into it. Talk about vogue. They looked fabulous!

The girls preformed a song together for the talent portion of the competition, they hammed it up as they modeled their evening wear  down the cat walk and then it was onto the question portion of the evening. Each girl was asked how their value will best help them "To be an example of the believers?" (This years theme) All of the girls did a great job. 

It was excruciating waiting to see which value would be crowned "Most Valuable."

The judges votes were in and a most remarkable event occurred. They decided that EACH value MUST be of great importance. Therefore each contestant was crowned Miss Young women Value of the year! 

All Winners!

Here is the poster I made for a decoration. It is 5 foot x 3 foot, covered in glitter, with light bulbs bordering the entire edge. It turned out pretty cute and added to the event.

I spent way, way, way to many hours on this prop, so I defiantly can't just throw it away, so if any of you other ladies in Young Women's could use it in your wards, let me know. (I'll even throw in the script.)

A much needed Enrichment Night!

Tonight I was able to get out of the house for a little while to attend a Stake Enrichment Night. Our speaker, Kim A. Nelson, was awesome! He is a nationally recognized speaker from "Time out for Women", he's a family and marriage counselor, has been a bishop and a stake president, and the author of "Happily Forever After and If God Loves Me, Why This? His message tonight was about, Finding Joy and happiness in this life. It wasn't too hard to find "joy" during his presentation tonight, he had us rolling with all of his props, funny stories, singing, jokes, analogies, and one gigantic doillie. He was Hilarious!

Along with being funny, he delivered a great message. I know I will probably mangle his message but I just wanted to take a minute to write down a few of his points, that were meaningful to me.

-He started out by explaining the role we played in the process of choosing to come to earth, about how excited and happy we were in Heaven to get a chance to come to this earth.

-He talked about the level of the adversary's commitment to keep us from these truths and how Satan is truly our Enemy. He wants us to fail. He is someone who wants us to feel unloved and to be unhappy in this life.

He said "Sometimes, when life gets particularly painful, it's hard to believe that God cares about what's happening to us. In those trying times, we often jump to wrong conclusions: "Maybe I'm not very valuable to Him," or "He must think I need this mess," or "I must have done something to disqualify myself from His love."

He talked about women never feeling like they are good enough in our Heavenly Father's eyes. Always comparing ourselves to others and being extra hard on ourselves. Sometimes we may think that our Heavenly Father's love and the gift of the atonement applies to everyone but ourselves, or that it is for everyone who is more perfect than I am. But, President Nelson taught us that we are all "imperfect" and that simply means that we are "normal".

-He talked about Heavenly Fathers Parental Love.

Our Heavenly Father loves us, just as we love our own children. President Nelson asked a women in the audience, "When did you start loving your children?" Did you start loving them after they were potty trained? Once they started School? Only when they were kind and loving?" The women in the audience said,"She loved them before they were born." President Nelson related this example to our Heavenly Father's love for us. He loved us before we were born, His love is unconditional, it is not something that can be earned or something we loose by making poor choices.

He explains that it is just like the pictures our children draw for us. (You know the ones. Stick figures and "I love you mom" written on it, spelt with an 'R' in it." Of course these works of art go straight to the fridge.)

It's not the masterpiece, but the artist that is of the greatest value!

This is true as it pertains to our Heavenly Father's love. It is not the "pictures" that he loves, but it is us. We are Valuable. His atonement and love apply to me because I am His daughter! I am loved!

President Nelson wanted us to ask ourselves... "If you saw a mother, treating her daughter, the way that you treat yourself (your self talk); what would you think of that mother?" (Would you think that she was patient, loving, understanding, and uplifting or would she be abusive, harsh, judgemental, and unforgiving)

Another thing he brought up is that the next time you find yourself in a difficult situation, we should pretend that your best friend just called you with the same predicament, and apply the same advice that you would have given her, to your own situation. He asked us to be kind to ourselves. Go easy on ourselves and know that we are important, have worth, and are loved.

He had tons of fun insightful stories and analogies that shed new light on truths that will help us find happiness in God's plan, and what we can do to get the most out of our earthly test. He delivered a great message and he made me feel loved.

I'm sick of being sick, Let's get out of here!

Hudson has been really sick all weekend. This is how he has spent most of his days.

He has been very tired, cuddly, and just wanting to lounge.

Poor sicky boy :(

By Monday morning he was feeling much better and before the kids could get on the bus for school, this morning, he had himself dressed and ready to go. Where is he going you may ask?? Anywhere! After a weekend of resting he was ready to get OUT!

I love how ambitious he was with getting dressed this morning. Shoe's, coat and all. Once he was this dressed he started saying outside-car-go. (Repeated 300 times)

I'm glad you're feeling better Hudson, it's good to have my little active boy back!

"Old Fashioned" Fire Truck

I was running errands today with Kase and Hudson and as we were heading down the road I told Kase, " Hey, look out your window at that Old Fashioned Fire Truck". "Cool Huh?"

His response back to me was, "Uhhh, Mom, did you say that fire truck is Old FASHIONED?"

I said, "Yeah, did you see it?" He said, "Mom, that truck is NOT "fashion" but it is "old" because did you see all of the dirt on it."

Too Cute!

ALL WORK, and NO PLAY :(

It has been "All WORK and NO Play" around here lately.

Usually our family has a nice balance between work and play but for the last five months Dan's pie chart has been filled 99% with work, and 1% divided between family, fun, 2 church callings and sleep. (Did you notice date night is no where to be found in that 1%. Ughhh. We've gone from 2-3 date nights a week, down to zero a week. I know I have been spoiled for the past several years at Dan's ability to take so much family time, so I shouldn't be complaining, but when you grow accustomed to something, once it is gone it feels like a big sacrifice)

With the way the economy and the real estate market have been going, Dan made some business decisions that didn't pay off for him as anticipated. He was driving his business in one direction, believing he would match the direction of the market perfectly, and instead, his business slowed to a crawl. He doesn't want to give up on it because he has such a passion for real estate and investment and knows that with some adjustments in his business models that he will still thrive in this market. He just has to retool and adjust how he has been doing things.

He always does a great job providing for our family and through this dry spell it has been no different. While reorganizing his real estate investing business he has started working with a good friend building up his Alarm Security System business by selling Alarm Systems as well as helping him grow their sales team locally and in other cities here in Eastern Washington.

Dan is such a talented businessman and provider. He is great at what he is doing and has been making pretty decent money doing it. Well, I should clarify, it isn't near the money he has been accustomed to making with his real estate activities, but we feel very blessed that Dan is able to provide for our needs.

The friend that owns this Alarm Company is Jacob Rose. He is also a successful and talented guy who has run a couple of companies of his own. This new Alarm Company is called Nationwide Security and Dan has been helping Jacob put some systems in place to hopefully produce some residual income for Jacob and for our family.

In addition to continuing to run his "limping Real Estate Business", as well as taking a full time active role in building up Nationwide Security, Dan also just started up his 4th Lawn and Landscape company. Dan has owned 3 other Lawncare and landscaping businesses in the past, which all proved profitable, so he decided to start one up this spring just for a little back up cash and for a way to employ the kids as they get older.

Dan has a great business mind and is working his tail off to get us back to a place where he has the time freedom and flexibility we are accustomed to. But for now, I think we have a few more months of these outrageous hours.

Here's a typical Day for Dan...

4:45am-8:00am- Passes out flyer's door to door to advertise his lawn mowing business and spring clean-up services. (Anyone who knows Dan, knows that he is NOT a morning person. So this is killing him. He has been passing out flyer's for a month now and says his feet feel broken. Ouch! He is trying to get 20,000 flyer's out by the end of March.)

8:00-8:30am- Shower and gathers his stuff for the day

8:30-1:00pm- Works at his New Horizons office doing Real Estate Investing

1:00-8:00pm- Works at Nationwide. Selling Security Systems, Interviewing and training people. (Also, usually fielding lots of real estate and Premium Lawn and Landscape calls.)

8:00-10:00pm- Usually gets called in to help with closing a deal or talking about business plans.

10:30-1:00am- Works on his laptop. Finishing up whatever he needs to, as it relates to the 3 businesses he is in the process of starting up.

Then it's off to bed for 3-4 hours of sleep. I don't really know how much longer he'll be able to keep this up. It's been grueling.

I won't even go into my day, other than saying these two simple words... "Single-Mom".

I have been trying to do my best to be supportive and to take over all of the family responsibilities at home, but the kids really miss their Dad. Dan has been doing a great job making sure the kids know that they are loved. He likes to leave them little notes, or take them out for an early Saturday morning breakfast date, at a restaurant.

It's hard to complain about Dan working so much, when I know he does it 100% for our family, to provide the things we need and to set himself up to have the time freedom he desires, to be with our family more. We are hoping that all of this hard work will start paying off soon so we can get back to a more normal, balanced life.

We sure love you Dan!