Our Christmas Card

Hope I actually get these mailed out.  I did order them!

Our 2011 Big Bull

When I say OUR, what I really mean is Jeff's.  However, I feel like I have a lot invested in this bull: time, money, emotional support. In my world, that entitles me to say our!  I'm pretty excited and Jeff is happy with it.  I'm really ready to have a hubby again without having to go camping to be with him.

Back to School

Let me first start out by saying that I am totally NOT ready for school to start.  I know a lot of moms can't wait to get their kids back to school, but I'm sad.  I have loved spending time with them this summer and we really just had so much fun.

Anyhow...

The kiddo's weren't too thrilled with back to school pictures this year.
Nick all out rebelled. "I'm not doing it, Mom"...I'll try again tomrrow on his first day of Preschool.
Ryan didn't want anything new for school this year. "Don't try and make me look nice, Mom."  I guess I got off cheap.  His sneakers still fit, he used last year's backpack, and he basically wore a swimsuit all summer so his clothes still seem kind of new. I didn't spend a dime for him on new school stuff. He was appalled that I made him comb his hair on the first day of school and absolutely mortified that he had a wear a button-up shirt.  He declared that he was absolutely only going to wear it once. 

I snapped these two random pictures when we had a bbq before school started and the uncles were busy roughing up the kids.  Black and white was a necessity because all their faces were beet red!  Cassie is always up for a little camera time...must be the age.

Campaigning for the POTY Award

Summer has not been kind to this little boy.

or maybe it's that Barrett hasn't been too kind to Summer...

I'm starting to think I don't worry about my kids enough because they are always getting hurt.  Barrett especially.  He's into everything and not afraid of anything!

I think it's a little early to start campaigning, but I'm already in the running for PARENT OF THE YEAR AWARD!

Don't get me wrong...We have had the BEST SUMMER EVER! (warning:  very few of the pictures match the description and I'm not taking the time to rearrange them...you get the idea)

We've camped.

We've gone to Lagoon a couple of times.
We've gone to Seven Peaks a few times.

All four big kids got new bikes (it was much needed).
Did lots of trails on the four-wheelers.

We hung out in St. George for two weeks.
Did the 4th of July in Delta and enjoyed the Parade.
Watched the Mapleton Fireworks that Uncle Steve put on (Firestorm Pyrotechnics).

Did the carousel and waterfall at St. George city center.

Did TONS and TONS of swimming.

Sold golf balls many, many mornings on the corner of our street.

Did some serious golf ball diving at the ponds with Uncle Craig.

Spent lots of quality time with Aunts & Uncles.

We did a lot of the bounce houses, miniature golf, etc...

Ryan Played in a lot of baseball games.

We went to a few movies (I recommend Smurfs 3D).

On top of that, Barrett also:
Had a double ear infection that took three antibiotics to clear up. (not really a picture to show for that).

Fell face first onto the snow-plow blade that goes on the four-wheeler.  Had to go to emergency pediatric dentist for that .  I really couldn't bring myself to take a picture of it because it really was that disgusting.  Jeff tried, but kept getting the dentist's hand instead of the mouth and injuries.  

Hurt his foot at Anti-Gravity in St. George.  We had it x-rayed and wouldn't you know that little kids don't really have bones in their feet until they are a bit older.  Therefore, it was just popped cartilage, but still looked gross and he wouldn't walk on it for days.

(Seriously, enlarge this picture and check out that ear...
it's Hitch multiplied by like 100)

Then, last night we had a neighborhood BBQ.  Barrett apparently sneezed on a wasp nest and kind of got attacked.  He got stung 6 times (that we can tell) in the ear, one time on the back of the head, once on the tummy, and once on the back.  Poor thing.  The gross stuff on his ear is mud from my neighbor to help pull the heat out of the stings (before I decided to take him to the doctor).

On Being a Deliberate Mother...

I know, it's something I don't think about a lot, but lately (thanks Natalie) I've been trying to consiously remind myself that I AM A DELIBERATE MOTHER.  I chose to become a mom and this is what I want to be doing with my life.

My friend, Natalie, got me onto The Power of Moms.  You've got to check it out... www.powerofmoms.com.

I watched their most recent webinar about Entitlement.  I have to tell you, I nodded my head yes and commented to the computer (the computer didn't respond) for an entire hour.   Watch it...tonight when your kids go to bed.  It is well worth your hour and so much better than whatever reality TV show you are into.

http://powerofmoms.com/entitlement-webinar-with-the-eyres/?utm_source=The+Power+of+Moms&utm_campaign=fa2f9ff69c-Entitlement_Trap_Webinar_Link7_20_2011&utm_medium=email

I'm starting today...I'm going to work on this entitlement issue.  We're going to start focusing on principles of ownership so that they don't feel entitled to every little thing in life.  And maybe someday they won't feel like they are going do DIE if they going into a store and NOT BUY something (doesn't matter what kind of a store it is:  furniture, jewelry, grocery, clothing, office supply). It's amazing what kids can think they "need" in the most random stores that you think don't have anything a kid could want.

I'm ordering the book!

7/6/11 Elk

And So It Begins...

We had our first baseball game of the season last night. Ryan was thrilled to play catcher and he wasn't too bad at it either. He didn't want to wear baseball pants because, "Mom, we don't slide." Then he reconsidered after seeing the dilemma of shorts and baseball mixed.
School let out for the summer about and hour and a half ago. And, I swear upon everything I hold dear in this world, my 8 year old just said, "Mom, I'm bored. What can I do?" Seriously.

Mom & Me

Ryan needed a picture of he and I for a "top secret" project at school this week. I couldn't find one of just he and I. I thought it was faster to just have Jeff quickly snap one before Ryan left for school this morning. It was with our cheap point-and-shoot and it was 7:30 in the morning, but I had to post it because I just can't believe how fast he's growing. Ryan is nearly as tall as I am (okay, he's still a few inches shorter) and he just past me in shoe size. It's hard to believe how quickly the last 8 years have gone by. Sure do love this boy!

Mother of the Year?

I'm already campaigning for Mother of the Year 2011. Last year I won it with a couple of broken arms rounding out the end of the year. The past two weeks we've been dealing with this:

So, if you're not schooled in the art of x-rays (which I wasn't until I had 3 boys) this is Ryan's pneumonia. It isn't bad in this picture. The bad news is that these x-rays were about 9 days in on an antibiotic and Ryan was feeling rotten. Being the awesome mother that I am, I kept sending him to school and then threatening to take him back down to the doctor if he didn't quit complaining. He was so crabby and fell asleep one night about 7:00 so I decided that I would take him in the next day. I felt terrible when they told me that he really was still sick and they put him on two more antibiotics. Hopefully he'll be feeling better soon.

While I have been doing a lot of catering to Ryan's every need (ice cream for breakfast and such), I've been going through a few things. Here's the big question:

How do you organize your recipes?

It's no secret that I'm a fan of being organized, but lately I'm not sure what to do with my mass amounts of recipes that aren't in books. I used to put all my recipes, neatly typed, on 4x6 cards and organized alphabetically, but now I also have this huge pile of recipes that I've ripped out of my magazines (being that I subscribe to like 5 cooking magazines). I hate to keep unnecessary magazines, so I rip out recipes that I like as I read the magazine and then I toss it in the trash when I'm done. So now I have all these recipes torn out of magazines and printed from online all in a 3-ring binder, but it just isn't efficient with the pages being so thin.

I'm thinking that I'm going to have to either type them all up on cards, but I will loose the pretty pictures. I'm also tossing around the idea of copying my neighbor's idea and scrapbooking (digitally) all of my recipes so that they are in print and have a picture of them (I would also have them easily on hand to share or pass down if I did this). It would take a long time, but in the end would be so worth it.

Again....

How do you organize your recipes?

Maybe I can copy your wisdom.

i heart Spring(cleaning)

Seriously, I do. I love having a clean, organized space. It's not really Spring here, considering that it snowed on Monday, but I'm in a Spring-cleaning type of a mood.

Does Spring cleaning make your heart smile like it does mine?

Anyhow, happy Spring cleaning to those of you who love it as much as I do.

And...is it okay to be in love with your cold-storage room? Because I love mine!

FromTahiti and Her islands...

Jeff and I finally got away on a vacation. No kids, no phones, just us! We just got back from French Polynesia. Tahiti was awesome, the food was unbelievably good, and we had a fabulous time. Definitely got to make a point of getting away together more often.

Warning: Tahitian Picture Overload coming up!

Heading over to the island of Tetiaroa.

Could it be more beautiful?Bird Island...hence all the birds.Jeff trying to decide if the coral was really coral or a ray.

Please ignore the butt-cheeks in the above picture!

The scenery is awesome, though. Loved the black sand beaches.

Unfortunately, it did rain, but didn't ruin anything we had planned.



Pepeete's marketplace, not as cool as the smaller shacks on the other islands you could shop at.

Passed the Sister Missionaries and had to stop to say hi. There were about 10 LDS Church buildings around the island of Tahiti (only about 65 miles around). The sisters thought I was so funny that I would want to stop and talk to them. When I asked where there were from, they said "here" because they are called on missions to French Polynesia if they are from there. Most of them speak 3-4 languages: French, Tahitian, the Native Tahitian language that I forgot the name of, and English.

Don't mind the fat lady in the picture...the waterfall was awesome. It had been raining and so we hiked in our swimwear to the waterfalls. The force of the waterfall was unreal. We couldn't even get close because even where I was standing I was getting pushed away. It was hard to even look toward the waterfall at that distance because the waterfall was so big from the runoff.

A different waterfall taken using our super-small travel tripod from walmart.

After the rain, there were tons of spontaneous waterfalls coming from everywhere in the mountains, I wish I wouldn've taken a picture where there were like 40-50 waterfalls coming out of the side of the mountains.

Ah, so beautiful.

I loved seeing random fruit trees growing everywhere and gecko's and such.

If you travel this way..the place to stay is on Moorea at the Sofitel Resort.

Still can't get over the beautiful waters.

Amazing.

There were chickens everywhere on the islands. I was amused.

Okay, I hope you can see this. The mountain looks like a woman looking up to the sky.

Just like in the movies!

Seriously, those dark spots in the water are reef sharks, stingrays, and eels.

I didn't last too long in with the sharks. They kind of freaked me out. And, I kept thinking that Steve Erwin thought stingrays were safe until he got stung in the heart and now he's dead. I got out and took pictures.

And not very good pictures at that. You'd think I would've taken good cool pictures of Jeff touching the rays and sharks, but instead I ended up with ones that looked like Jeff was having a stare-down with the rays.

Paradise in a picture.

But THE VERY BEST PART OF THE ENTIRE TRIP...

GRAM STAYED HOME WITH THE BOYS

AND POTTY TRAINED NICK!

and on a side note, does anyone else's kids hate naps....

unless they are in a cool fort that mom build between that couch and ottoman?