NEW LOOK!

Holy COW!!! I feel so smart and accomplished when I look at this blog template!!!! I DID THIS!!!!

Of course, it was only with the fantastic step-by-itty-bitty-step tutorial that Crazymamaof6 sent me!

(THANK YOU, THANK YOU, THANK YOU CRAZYMAMA!!)

So now I am feeling a little more computer savvy....I've learned how to download digital scrapbook papers, and then use them to create a festive Halloween look for the blog, all without erasing all the info on my blog....which I was indeed worried about. Now if I could get a step-by-itty-bitty-step tutorial about how to actually scrapbook with these awesome and cute kits I've downloaded I'd be set.....oh, how I wish I were closer to AZ and I could take onehm's scrapbooking class.

So, obviously, we have returned from CA, all in one piece, although all very exhausted! We are just now starting to feel normal again, except I may need to visit a chiropractor to fix my "hotel room bed" neck...ouch!

My five brain cells are now fatigued from the blog template creation, so I'll be uploading our pictures from the trip tomorrow....there will be some fun ones in there, so check back!!! :)

Fall Break!

We're off to visit MICKEY!

Technically, we don't have school off until Thursday and Friday, but we're heading out early(tomorrow am) for a few days in sunny CA. Be prepared when we get back to hear about the kids loving Disneyland, and other fun stuff!

Hooray for fun vacations, and let's just hope the kids behave so mom and dad have some fun too!

The only thing that could make the next few days perfect is if we could leave the kids with a sitter one night and go to "Wicked"...maybe another time!

See you LATER!

PS.....We have yet to see if Riley will have clothes to take.....she informed us at 5:30 pm that she has no clean laundry and just now started a load, grumbling all the way.....I'm still confused as to why she did nothing on Saturday except attempt to take root in the couch...aren't the consequences of irresponsibility a joy?!

Random updates...

Just the usual going on around here.....which is not much!

Conference today: Well, I was totally wrong in my guess of the new member of the 1st Presidency...I had my "money" on Elder Holland or Elder Oaks. For those that missed it, Elder Eyring was called as the new 2nd Counselor. Elder Quentin Cook is the newest member of the Twelve. Ron was pretty excited, as Elder Cook was the Executive Director of the missionary dept. for the past 4 years and Ron has worked pretty closely with him at times. I told Ron he better be careful as there are now 4 members of the Twelve that know him by name! As for my favorite talk...I LOVED Elder Holland's! WOW! All the proponents of "Mormons aren't Christians" heads are gonna be rolling! Elder Wirthlin....what an inspiration and sweet man....he had the hardest time getting through his talk, and by the end I just wanted him to say amen and let them help him sit. I think Elder Nelson was thinking the same thing! I hope everything is alright with him, and I'm a tad bothered that nothing has been said about how he is doing.

Soccer Saturday: We had a repeat of last Saturday's weather again today....in the 30's and raining/snowing. The rain stopped in time for Jared's game, so he played, which was good since we had treats today and I wanted to get rid of them. Then about 20 minutes before Nicole's game, it started raining again. We called the coach, and he said it was on, so we bundled her up and Ron took her since both Ellie and Jared had gone down for a nap. Ten minutes into the game it was dumping icy sleet, and the kids were trying to run down the field with their faces covered to keep warm, so the coaches called the game. It then started dumping snow and the field was covered by the time they were leaving....good thing since I was about to call Ron's cell phone to tell him to bring her home! When she walked in she was soaked, so we bundled her up in a blanket in front of the fire. She survived, and was so stinking feisty tonite that she got sent to bed first....a usual occurrence lately.

Miscellaneous happenings of the week: Jared got his 1st bee sting....right on the cuticle of his pinky toe! It was actually the first bee sting that any of our kids have had! We have, last minute, planned a trip to Disneyland for next week's fall break. The kids are giddy with excitement. It should be fun. Sorry there aren't pictures.....I haven't taken any! I thought about the bee sting, but I think Jared would have thought me quite heartless since all he wanted was his blankie and cuddles from me, so I relented. You can guarantee a few next week being at Disneyland and all!

Pepto-Bismol?

**Edited...I can no longer stand the pink background, so it's been changed...just to explain the now nonsense of the post to follow!

**2nd Edit...I went back to a brown background...I still don't like it, but it isn't as dizzy as the pink...I need to get to work and try to make it really cute. There are just too many choices; title color, background, border, post, side-bar....ACK, stop already! I'm overwhelmed! :)


Is it just me, or does it look like I spilled a bottle of Pepto on the background of my blog?! Just trying to infuse a little color....I think I failed. I tried brown with some pink....it didn't look too good either. Now I have a headache so I should stop trying to do anything with it! I just need to bite the bullet, print out the fantastically written and very difficult looking tutorial that Crazymama was so kind to send me about how to really personalize it....but I think I'll close my eyes here for a minute and dream about the 44 oz Dr. Pepper that I'm going to go get as soon as Ellie wakes up.

Fun & frolic....

As I stated in a comment in the post below, life has really not been that exciting around here...I haven't been doing much, except being beyond exasperated at my children's complete lack of obedience as of late. Trust me, I don't expect perfection, or even anything really close to it, but I would like to not be ignored 100% of the time when I ask them to do something. Nicole seems to be the major tester right now, and that causes a bad example for the younger ones that are watching her like a hawk. My oh my, that one gives us a run for our money...

If any of you are watching my job list on the right side-bar, you'll notice that most of my tasks aren't going to change this week! Mainly because the jobs I gave myself for this past week are some that I have been trying to avoid for a while...like the pantry and playroom! Therefore, I very conveniently found other things to do instead! Like taking a nap, peeling grapes, watching stupid home improvement shows on TV, staring at the wall.....maybe this week I'll force myself to do it! I guess I could make a chore chart, and if I get 5 gold stars I can go buy myself a new shirt or something fun! It worked for Jared and his medicine, I suppose it could work for his mommy!?!

One thing I did finish was the canning of peaches. Half a bushel left me with 11 jars...I could've done an even dozen, but the kids wanted some now! So we ate a few. Here's a look at my work:
I think they turned out pretty tasty looking! (pat on the back!)



Friday morning I went outside to see this to the north of our home:

It was even more impressive before I took the picture. It had faded by the time I got back out with the camera. (If I had any idea how to use my camera I probably could've taken a better picture as well.) Now, some of you might say"Wow, a sunrise." But HEY! I typically don't see these things because:

1. I like to sleep in well past when the sun comes up. (Of course I have kids now that don't let me.)
2. I'm usually frantically running around inside the house getting kid's breakfasts and lunch ready, and trying to keep Nicole on task....remember, she ignores me much of the time!

But Friday morning, there was this ethereal glow coming from outside, and I had to check out what it was, and the above is what I saw. Now, you know what they (weathermen, sailors, and farmer's almanac types) say about things like this: Usually a storm is brewing when you see things like this.


They were correct.


Here's what this afternoon looked like:
You might just think that those are clouds on the mountain....well, yes, but those clouds are dropping SNOW! And the picture didn't capture it, but there was a bit of snow falling as I took the picture. Fall in Utah. It was in the high 70's and sunny yesterday, and this afternoon? Raining/snowing and 36 degrees. Soccer this morning was fun! With the wind chill we figured that it was about 30 degrees...The kids looked like oompah loompah's in the sweat suits and coats with soccer uniforms on top. We were incredibly proud of Jared though, even with the cold, he was out there playing...some of the kids wouldn't even leave their parents car or come out from under a blanket! So Jared played almost the entire game (which they shortened by half!), and scored all 4 goals that his team got! Hooray for our little soccer boy! I'd have taken pictures but I couldn't get the camera to autofocus with all my uncontrollable shivering. Maybe after church tomorrow we'll venture up into the hills to check out the fall colors and snow!

Hope everyone had a great Saturday!

Who's out there?

Just to satisfy my curiosity, who's out there checking up on me?!

C'mon, leave a comment.....it's easy, painless, and makes me feel happy! :)

please...?

It's also fun to find out who, other than myself, is making my little counter move slowly up!

The mouths of babes....

Lately Ellie has been really adding to her vocabulary. Tonight Ron was trying to get her to say her name...he was pointing to her and asked, "What's your name?"

Ellie's response...."Cute!"

And she is!

"A" is for Apple, and "S" is for Saturday Soccer games!

Well, Jared got better just in time for his 1st preschool field trip to the APPLE ORCHARD! It's great when one of the parents have connections so the kids can go to new and interesting places like this. (Nicole got to go to the dog wash last year!)

Since last week was "A" week, and the Thomas twin's grandpa owns an orchard, the kids got to see exactly where those yummy apples that we get at the store come from. They even got to pick one to eat! (If you have never tried a "Honey Crisp" apple, you haven't lived!) They also saw the fruit storage building where the apples go to get cleaned, sorted, and stored. Then there are some people that this same mom knows that have an interesting menagerie of animals in their back yard.....so at the end the kids got to go see the chickens, peacocks, goats, deer, llamas, and camels! (No pictures of that, sorry! I had to get home to greet Nicole's carpool.)

The kids enjoying the spoils!

Saturday was a return to soccer games. The kids both did well! They seem to have the general idea of what they are supposed to do. That is: get the ball, kick it to your goal. The whole part about passing it to team members that are open instead of hogging it all to yourself will come later I'm sure! At least I hope...





Nicole is in the middle there....her team is in navy uniforms, while the other team was in royal....kind of hard to tell any of them apart in this game! Nicole did get one goal toward the end of her game, and was pretty proud of herself.









**First, a disclaimer: No, our son is not wearing a soccer dress. For some reason, the league gives out uniforms that are veeerrrrryyyyyy large for the kids, and the littlest kids get the brunt of the largeness....most of these kids are just coming out of toddler sizes, and well, they don't make soccer uniforms in 4T. You should see the socks. They go all the way to the knee, then fold completely back over the shin guards to his ankle!

Jared actually had a very impressive goal in his game. The ball was kicked in, Jared got it, then took it all the way down the field into the goal!!! He was basically on fire after that and did really well the rest of the game, ending with one more goal. The best though was the little boy on the other team...he was about to get a goal, but then tripped, so he just grabbed the ball and threw it into the goal! Kids are the best! :)

What I've been up to....

Other than the illness fun......which is hopefully on it's way to an end....Jared is better, Riley is feeling better and back to school(yeah, even she was out for 2 days), and I took Nicole and Ellie to the ped today for a dose of Decacron each to take away this nasty croup(for whomever might be keeping track, that is SIX insurance co-pays in EIGHT days!)....here's what I've been doing:

Feeling overjoyed when Ellie is doing this. Really, most of the time she isn't doing the above, she is crying because her throat hurts, which makes it hurt all the more....my poor baby. Her voice sounds like she's a little old lady that has smoked for 40 years...although this picture sure is cute....I adore her ponytails!

Trying to keep the kiddos entertained....our "Gathering Table" certainly has gathered.....alot of papers, crayons, markers, and other assorted time filling clutter!

Meet Joey.....our cocker spaniel....although he is feeling a bit less like a cocker spaniel since I SHAVED OFF his hair! He is so embarrassed....he knows all the other dogs are going to make fun of his homespun hair-do. But I was so sick of his long hair shedding all over, that I took care of it! He'll deal with it, he has survived the many other shavings of the past!

And last....I once again attemped to bake homemade bread. Heidi made the mistake of posting a recipe for I hadn't butchered before, so I figured, what the hey?! For some reason, I have never been a successful bread maker.....for whatever reason I end up with loaves that don't rise and resemble adobe bricks, or end up so crumbly and dry that they just come apart.....I don't know why. Perhaps yeast and I don't get along. But actually, even though this loaf is certainly not the prettiest thing to come out of an oven, I think I did remarkably well! The dough doubled well in the 1st rising, although I do think it possibly should've risen more in the baking process...maybe since I didn't use freshly ground flour I ended up with a bit too much? (If you read this Heidi, any tips? Other than use less flour?!) But as I cut into that nice warm loaf, it didn't fall apart, wasn't an adobe brick, and I was pretty excited....maybe I actually had a bit of success! The dough was moist, and as dense as you'd expect from 100% whole wheat, hey, I think I may have a good thing here, like something EDIBLE! I slather it with butter, take a bite....and well, there was something lacking....a certain flavor missing.....I quickly scan the recipe....



That's when I realized I forgot to add the salt.

Sigh.....so goes my week!

Health Update

Jared: Antibiotics are taking care of the strep nicely, unfortunately he has now developed a nice runny nose and croupy cough courtesy of a virus. So along with antibiotics, he also gets chewable ibuprofen and benadryl. Because of the cough/nose thing he stayed home from preschool, and we also did not do pictures. School pictures, that is. Today is school picture day and I usually take the little kids as well....that way all the pictures in the hall match, and the packages are a WHOLE lot cheaper than Kiddie Kandids. To top it off, some of the cutest pictures of my kids have been from school pictures.

Nicole: Back to school today, feeling fine. When she came home, she sounded awfully hoarse and stuffy, and also has a stridorous cough.....all viral. Ibuprofen and benadryl all around!

Ellie: My poor incredibly miserable baby. She was roasting all night. We went to the ped this morning, and she has a double ear infection! Didn't even test her for strep. He didn't want to torture her with a throat swab (she doesn't like the Dr. much and fights them even listening to her with a stethoscope), and since she was being put on antibiotics, it would take care of the strep if she does have it.

The rest of us are good (knocking madly on wood) and intend to stay that way!!!! I'm now off to start cleaning and sanitizing my house.