Ky's 9th Birthday Bash

Ky chose the Court Club for his birthday venue. Rock Climbing was first on the list, and the kids loved it. The goal was to grab the chicken dangling from the top, and return to the sidelines bragging about how fast, or skillfully you accomplished that goal. For a while the boys were climbing only half way up and then coming back down. But after Hailey made it to the top before any of the boys, their manly ego's kicked in. They weren't about to be out done by Ky's little sister. 

When it became to easy for them to make it to the top they threw in a few challenging obstacles of their own. (Here's Ky climbing the wall blindfolded. Some of the other boys tried to climb the wall carrying a ball in one hand.)

Next was the Ice Cream Cake, Presents, and Birthday Spankings.

And lets not forget about the Real Reason Ky wanted the court club. Check out the killer action sequence my stud of a photographer husband took. 

On your Marks... Get Set...GO!

That's right....One of the kids Chickened Out. 

Happy Birthday Ky. We love you. We are so proud of you!

You're Awesome!

Easter Eggs

Egg Salad Sandwiches 

HERE WE COME.

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!