Valentine's 2013

For Valentine's Day this year, we thought we would start a new tradition: Love potions!

Mom mixed together some juices and some fruits and then threw in some secret love potion so that we would love each other when we drank it even more than ever.  So we all counted to three and then drank our love potions and this is what happened: Emily started hugging Mommy, Madi and Avery gave each other a love high-five, Mom gave Dad a love wink, and Dad started kissing his own arm.

Mom made a juicy steak dinner!

The next day we all powdered our noses and got dressed up for a Stake Family Dance!  I (Dad) was lucky that I got to take not one, but four girls to the ball this year!

Here's us getting ready to go boogy.

What cute girls!  I'm going to have to buy another shotgun in about 10 years to fend off the boys...

Suddenly, the love potion wore off!  We hurriedly drank some more. 

Check out the decorations!  They did a fantastic job setting up the mood.

Dad and the girls showing everybody how it's done on the dance floor.  They were all calling our names...

Mom and the girls shaking their booties.

We stopped and posed in front of the castle.

 A perfect night...Well, almost. Madisen had a stalker all night, and we just couldn't get her away from the boy! He followed and stared at her all night. It made her and us as parents, very uncomfortable! Watch out kid, we have a nice new shot gun at home. Just sayin'. Nevertheless, it was a fun time to be had with the family.

 Madisen's crown slipped down right as the picture was taken. Poor girl!

Christy and Emily posing together after church.  Emily gave her first talk in Primary.  She was awesome!

1000 Springs Resort

Some friends of ours in the ward invited us and 3 other families to go with them to a hot springs resort last week and we had such a great time. It was little Caleb's 2nd Birthday too. So we celebrated with cupcakes and presents. 1000 Springs Resort is only about a 30 minute drive outside of Twin Falls and fairly cheap, so we packed up the kids and the gear and headed out. We swam for almost 3 hours! We were (almost) turned into raisins by the time we left. 

I don't know if our girls can sometimes make normal faces?? haha! 

Thanks for the great time!

Girls Night Out

Last Friday I went out with some friends of mine for a girls night out.  Since Ryan knew about my girls night out, he decided to drop by the store pick up the movie, Princess and the Popstar and surprise the girls with a  daddy daughter date night! What a fun dad he is! It was so cute that he thought of them and wanted to spend  spend time with them doing something they would like. The girls love this movie! They would watch it everyday-twice a day if I let them! (Avery has now declared she wants to be a Popstar when she grows up. So she has been singing all over the house since. She memorized the words to one of the songs, and even performed it with all the dance moves in front of my whole family! I would have never done that as a kid! She is a lot braver than me).

Ryan doesn't look too sure about this movie... :) 

Secretly though, I am sure he loved it! ;) haha!

Thanks honey for the night out with the girls! 

And I am glad you had fun on your night out with our girls!

F.H.E. Bowling

Once a month for Family Home Evening we like to take the kids out to do something fun. Whether that is bowling, out for ice cream, see a movie, skating or swimming. Tonight all votes were for bowling! 

Scores: Dad- 135

Mom- 111 

Madisen-68

Avery-72

Emily-63

The music that was playing was fast and hip and the girls couldn't help but show off their sweet dance moves.

A lot of posing was happening too. It couldn't be helped!

(If you look closely at this last picture, my ring looks like a massive diamond! Heck yes!;)

Our Beautiful Girls

Emily has started doing this weird smile. But it seems like around 3 1/2-4 years of age all three of our girls went through this "weird smile" phase.  Anyone else go through that with their kids?

She's still as cute as a button of course to us, but I really do miss her old smile!

Avery is our poser. Always hamming it up for the camera! Avery is loving pre-school and is starting to really enjoy reading. She has become such a good little reader and we are so proud of her. 

Madisen is getting so big. She really has matured and grown so much this year. We are so proud of her and what she is accomplishing at school too. She is such a great example and friend to everyone. 

About  3-4 times a year I like to take their picture before church to see how much they have changed! And boy have they changed!! It's sad, but good too.

Unwelcomed House Guest...

We bought a treadmill. 

Of course it couldn't just be a normal size treadmill. Not with a husband who is over 6 feet tall. We had to buy the largest, longest, heaviest treadmill in the store. Which also happened to be pretty spendy too. 

Exaggerating much?

Not much.

It's a MONSTER. Or at least that's what I've been calling it since it took over our home the day it moved in.

It's not it's fault, entirely. But seriously, what a beast!

It's a Nordic Track 900C.  Nordic is an accurate name for it too, as "Nordic" means, the countries that make up a region in Northern Europe and the North Atlantic.

It's massive I tell you!

The problem?

Or rather, problemS with it.

Well first, we didn't plan it out very well, because we didn't really have space for it in our home.

Second problem, we bought it online and they shipped it to the nearest Sears store so returning it makes it challenging as we already opened and assembled it.

Third problem, we asked our neighbor if we could borrow his truck to go pick it up, because we don't have a truck. So asking him again is out of the question, even though we are good friends and we know he would, we just feel stupid.

Fourth problem, Ryan and same neighbor who lent us his truck, struggled for 10 minutes just getting the countries, I mean, treadmill into our modest home. Now where in the world do we put it??

Fifth problem, (which maybe should have been mentioned first) we started with a budget of $300, that quickly went up to $500, then what the heck, let's get this $1,500 treadmill as it's made for taller people and makes it easier for them to run on!!  Lucky for us, it was on SALE for $899! Yippee! (Total sarcasm there, if you didn't catch it). (And FYI, most treadmills are on sale this time of year anyway. Of course "SALE" doesn't mean a heck of a lot to me, as I know consumers mark everything higher just to then mark it lower to say, "SALE". Whateves). 

(I know I am sounding negative but I guess Ryan and I didn't think this purchase all the way through and now I have a Monster house guest for all time!) Don't get me wrong, I always wanted a treadmill, to hang my clothes on- I mean, to work out on. :) I really did. Uh, I mean, do...  I just wasn't imagining such a Monster one, to loom over my head everyday teasing me for being too chicken to use the it.

Am I on the sixth problem? Lost TRACK. 

Get it? 

Nevermind.

We had to rearrange 4 rooms in our house! First building the treadmill in our master bedroom, only to realize the next morning that that wasn't going to work for either of us. Taking Monster apart again and carrying it to the bedroom next to ours, which was the old family/tv room. The family/tv room is now moved upstairs to the old toy room. And the toy room was moved into the old scrap-booking/guest room. And that has been moved downstairs to be roommates with, Monster, I mean treadmill... I mean Monster. ??? Did you get all that? I don't blame you if you didn't, I barely did.

ANYWAYSSS...

Without further ado, say hello to Monster.

I am sure the more time Monster and I spend together, our relationship will grow into something more. But for the moment I am mourning the loss of the space in my home. Give me time and I am sure I will fall madly in love with it as my husband has. He has shown me the last two weeks what a great investment it was, as he has gotten up every morning to run on it since. Way to go babe! So proud. And I can say, in that, I am ever so grateful, as he will be healthier for me and our kids by exercising his heart and body. 

And THAT, my dear, is the 3rd post this month! BOOM baby!! :)

Sledding

On New Year's Day we went out sledding down the hill at Perrine Elementary School. We went with our friends and neighbors the Clark's. We didn't get many pictures but it was a memorable day with lots of laughs and screams! There was one time I went down with Emily and we were going so fast we hit the fence at the bottom and my boot went through the bottom of the fence along with my leg! I was stuck with the fence all the way up my thigh. Luckily some sweet 10 year old boys came sledding close by that I ask them for help and got my leg out. Thank you boys! 

The girls loved going down with Dad and didn't want to go with Mom as much. Sad face! :( I am just not as fun as Dad I guess! 

Madisen and Emily were almost fearless, while Avery was more hesitant this time, as they would zip down the hill all by themselves, nearly giving me a heart attack each time. I felt like a terrible mom for just letting my 3 year old bolt down the hill unattended, while I hold my breath and then gasp with each bump she hit thinking that will be her last! But they came away with only minor bumps and bruises. Successful sledding trip!

Happy New Year!!

Our last day of 2012 the girls and I spent a few hours of the day playing in the snow together. I had so much fun and was laughing so hard with them I nearly peed my pants a few times! The girls were all on a team against me in a snowball fight. It was the perfect day and the perfect way to end the year. 

We couldn't find Emily and Avery's snow pants (until days later), but they didn't seem to mind at all)

 Madisen getting a snowball ready to throw at ME! AHH!

You better RUN!

2013 is here!! 

I made a few goals and resolutions this year. I usually don't wait till New Years to do it, I just start goals whenever, but this year I made some goals and I plan on sticking to them.  I thought I would share them this year and what I am doing to achieve them. I am working on a few spiritual goals, physical goals, emotional goals and also a few year long projects. 

-Read D&C (reading every day)

-Go to the temple at least once a month or more. (I am in the processes of setting up date nights with 2 other couples in our ward this month. We all take turns watching all the kids once, and we all get two nights a month to go out. So we will get to the temple more...so excited!)

- Lose 10 pounds and get more active (we just bought a new treadmill last night! More on THAT later).

-Embrace my 30's and my wrinkles. ( Being 30 is GREAT...but I am still working on the wrinkle thing. haha!)

- Be more positive and happy and grateful (Serving makes me happy and being around people that are positive and grateful reminds me to be more like that too.)

-To laugh more with my kids and let things go that are not that important. (Dancing and singing in the kitchen,  yesterday- playing don't let the balloon touch the ground games, just being more spontaneous with them everyday).

 -Blog and write in my journal more (Just using my time better and making it a priority every week. It's always been important to me to journal my kids lives because they love looking at pictures and seeing videos of themselves and letters that I wrote to them.)

-Saving more and being more thrifty this year. (Reading, The Total Money Makeover by Dave Ramsey. Looking at ads and cutting coupons and just being more aware of prices and how I spend. Work on freezer meals)

-Start and get up to date on all the girls baby books and scrapbooks. (I have already looked through thousands of pictures and have uploaded and ordered 300 hundred pictures from Wal-mart to scrapbook and journal. They are on their way!)

-Work on and Finish sewing projects. (I am making the girls barbies dresses for their barbies. I would also like to learn how to make my girls dresses too.)

Those are my resolutions! I am really excited this year to be doing them and starting many of them already. This is going to be a great year and I excited for all the fun things coming up this year for our family.