Six People | Twelve Times

It's us. AGAIN! We were lucky to get to visit Las Vegas last weekend, where we have a fantastic photographer (thank you, Erin)! We had plans of going to some dry lake beds, but with the rain, they were no longer dry. We opted for this closer, easier, kids cooperate much better location. We also decided to wear mustaches. Why? Oh, I don't know. We're just goofy like that. We are a family of six. We are not perfect. Our house will not be spotless if you drop by. I am okay with that. I am trying to get to the point where I am happy just being real. No false pretenses. I think that in just embracing my unperfectness, we will all be happier. I have many closets and drawers that are despicable. I am slowly trying to clean them out one by one. I fear that by the time my list is done, I will just have to start over. Why is that? Am I just prone to clutter? Back to our unperfectness...we yell a bit, our kids don't get straight a's, they work for every spelling word they get correctly, we all cry over homework on a weekly basis. Seriously. Homework is a blogpost all by itself. Who are we? What kind of people are we? Normal? Hopefully? What is normal? Troy and I have been married for over 13 years. That's not really normal nowadays, is it? We have 4 kids. That is kind of 'over the limit' for today, isn't it? Our house isn't huge. I am happy and grateful for our home, and try not to covet anyone else's home. I don't iron our clothes unless I HAVE to. I hang every shirt up, and the only thing that goes in dressers are pants/shorts/socks/undies. My boys love to wrestle. I hate it. They, apparently, do not. So maybe we are normal, and maybe we are not. But we sure have a good time together.

Valentine's Day!

Oh...Valentine's Day. My husband hates Valentine's Day. Valentine's Day has always been my favortie holiday. Until I got married and realized the fantasy of Valentine's Day just doesn't exist. Troy hates any holiday that demands you to buy gifts and turns every holiday into a commercialized event. I see his point of view, but I also think that if he did a few things a year that showed his love and appreciation(and he does), I wouldn't feel like I deserved something on Valentine's Day. Honestly, I don't want flowers - they just die, and we are headed to Hawaii in April, so I don't think he needs to spend money, but a nice note or email, would have been nice. I have decided that it is my job as a mom to teach my boys how to treat girls on Valentine's Day. So, I bought each of the girls a bouquet of flowers and hid them in the garage. When Troy got home, I told him to write the girls a note, leave the note and flowers on the front porch, and rind the doorbell and run. He did and the girls were so excited. He waited and did it a little late, so they were a bit tired, but the next day they have been so excited about their flowers that are now in a vase on the kitchen table. And as for me...you do what you gotta do. My girls were excited and won't know until they're older and read this, that this is what happened, and will probably continue happening each year. This year, I decided to focus on the kids. Make it a fun day for them. I was going to do a huge breakfast, but Troy ended up having to go into work early, so I thought we could do breakfast for dinner. The kids love that, and so that is what we did. We had heart shaped pancakes, strawberry milk, hashbrowns, bacon (I never buy bacon - ever), and scrambled eggs. I also made chocolate covered strawberries and heart shaped chocolate cups with strawberry mousse. I am telling you - it took me about 5 hours and by the time I was done my feet ached! Next year I'm opting for the heart shaped pizza! We had a candle lit dinner and enjoyed eating our breakfast for dinner! This year I volunteered to go to all of my kids classrooms for their Valentine's Parties. They were all super great, and it was easy for me to do! Hope everyone had a fabulous Valentine's Day!

Little Chinese Girls

Jay brought my girls these dresses from China. They love them and beg to wear them all the time. They wore them to church a few weeks ago. Complete with chopsticks in their hair. Kristin had one bun, and it was easy to cross two chopsticks. Haley had 2 buns (she argued for 2) and I told her I couldn't put chopsticks in her two buns. She begged, and what could I do? It's a classic chopstick hairstyle. So grateful for Jay for these gorgeous dresses!

Basketball Season

Jake played his second year of basketball this year. He loved it. It took a few games for him to really get agressive, but he turned out to be a great defender! He was on a team with 2 of his friends, Daniel and Ryan. The best part of the games is always giving high-fives and the snack! They don't keep score in Jake's age group but he did great and scored 1 basket!

Strep Face

Last week, Haley got a cold. I didn't think anything of it. She just had a runny nose. No sore throat, no fever, nothing. The only thing a little weird was she had these dots on her nose and face. I talked to Cherice about it and she told me that Kinlee had just gotten that with a cold. Well, Thursday night, Jake had a fever and sore throat. I barely got him into the doctor and he had strep. He was actually so excited about it. Jake is the only one of my kids with tonsils in his throat. Jake also never gets sick. I think he loved the attention of taking him to the doctor, getting medicine, the whole bit. Kinda funny, really. When I got home from taking him to the doctor, Haley had a fever. Naturally - I had just gone to the doctor, and now they were closed. I gave her motrin and sent her to bed. The next morning, she woke up with dots everywhere! Her face was red, swollen, and there were dots everywhere! I debated taking her to the ER but decided to wait a few hours for the doctors office to open. When we got there, the doc told me that this was bad. She too, had strep. But it had settled in her nose, not her throat, which caused sores to go all over her face. She has horrible sores in her nose and all over her face. Her nose would literally bleed just from being so runny. We put baby oil on it to try to protect the skin, but nothing helped. Since it was so bad, she had to get 2 shots of antibiotics in her legs and an oral antibiotic for 10 days! She about died with the shots and wouldn't walk for the rest of the day. She also didn't dare to pull her pants down to go to the bathroom. She was really being ridiculous. Apparently the shots were really thick and very painful. A week later, the scabs have fallen off, but the skin is still really tender and pink. The doctor told me she will have a full recovery and I really hope so! The kids have been saying that Haley has 'strep face' instead of strep throat. It's really funny. Haley also calls the sores on her face her 'dots'.

Cheerleaders...

I heard about a little Cheer camp for the girls put on by Herriman High School Cheerleaders. They went to a day long camp, and then the next Friday, they performed at half time during the Boys Varsity Basketball Game. The girls were so excited, especially Kristin. Friday afternoon, they both got their hair cut and Becca styled it just for their debut at the basketball game! Alexandra, their cousin, did the cheer camp to. All brothers were there to cheer them on! Before their perfomance, I was sitting at the half court line, the girls sat across from me, and I was waiting for them to run out and do their cheer. I was watching Haley, and I could tell she was starting to cry. The older girls were so nice, and tried to calm her down. When it was time, they both ran out! It was so exciting for them, especially Kristin. This is like one of her dreams come true! Go Herriman Mustangs!

Buggy Program

The second grade put on a 'Buggy Play' at school. All the kids had a speaking part and there was lots of singing! Jake's part was: We believe that every month of May should be a National Buggy Holiday!
It was a short, 30 minute program - the best kind - and Jake did really good!



Jake is a good kid. He struggles in reading, but otherwise does great in school. I am not worried about his reading, I know that at one point, it will just click with him. I spoke with Jake's teacher, Mrs. Craven, the other day. She told me what a great student Jake is. One day, during the middle of lunch, due to weather the school changed outside recess to an inside day. Jake's teacher was making copies, and didn't hear the announcement. When she realized it, she was worried to think that all of her kids were running wild in her classroom. She hurried to the classroom to find her whole class playing 'Heads up 7 up'. She asked who had gotten it started and organized it, and the class told her that Jake did it. I am so happy to know that he is a leader and he will do what he knows he is supposed to. I am so proud of him! I hope he continues to do well in school!

Outtakes

Here are some of the other photos we got of our family in our BYU gear. I blew up the first photo and it's up on the shelf. LOVE IT!

California or Bust!

I just created a blog book for 2010 and was so sad at how much I slacked last year, so I am DETERMINED to be better! Starting in 2011! Here goes...

We got a new 2011 Honda Odyssey a few days before Christmas. Our 2001 Honda Odyssey's transmission was starting to die. I won't lie...I have been wanting a new car for years. I have been drivingor the old van since Kyle was 5 months old! I was hoping our van would last until we got back from Hawaii in April - but that didn't happen. So - we got a new one. Why mess with something that has been so great for us for 10 years and 1 month? It has all the bells and whistles, and we are in love with it. We promptly planned a road trip - to where else - California. For a few reasons:
1. To visit my brothers
2. My parents had been there a few days before us and had taken my brothers and a friend to Disneyland and had purchased 2 day passes that they only used for 1 day and they desperately needed 5 people to use the other day. (We just bought an extra ticket)
3. David has a friend from China (can't spell her name, sorry - Jarene, we called her Jay) and we really wanted Kristin to meet her and speak with her in Chinese
4. We wanted to visit our friends, The Fonnesbeck's in Las Vegas for the kids to play and to start off our six people twelve times project.
5. I had quick commercial photo shoot in Las Vegas




We were able to go to the beach for about 20 minutes. It was a gorgeous day and 80 degrees and wished we could have spent more time there.
Can you believe she can sleep like this? The booster is totally moved from where it's supposed to be!


Horrible photo, I know, but this was Haleys first time she could ride on Soarin'. She was terrified!


Disneyland was really fun for us this year! Haley has finally hit the mark where she can ride almost every ride. She went on Tower of Terror, Thunder Mountain Railroad, Matterhorn, and Soarin' over California. It was fun for our whole family to be on a ride together with nobody sitting off with a small kid! We had so much fun. The weather was amazing! I wished I would have packed shorts! Who knew...January? We saw the new World of Color which is naturally - out of this world. It lasted about 30-40 minutes and the boys were awestruck the entire time (the girls couldn't stay awake late enough for it to even start!). It was a super fun day in Disneyland!

Chinese

Here is Kristin and her friend Karsen singing a song they learned for the Chinese New Year. Kristin gets very shy and doesn't like to sing in front of us, so I was so excited when I conned her into singing for this video! I have no clue what she is singing. By the time Kristin is in 8th grade, she will have passed the AP Chinese test. In High School, she will learn another language, and by the time she graduates high school, she will be more marketable than any returned missionary. That is what we have been told. At the rate she has gone in less than a school year, I am no longer surprised by those promises. This is truly amazing.