52 Blessings - Week 5

I am grateful this week for a husband that provides so well for our family that we could take an impromptu trip with some of his family to Disney World. We had so much fun being in the warm weather and being with some of Mike's family. Here are a few pictures of our trip.

Mike thought I was crazy to buy the children ice cream before the fireworks one night, but they had so much fun!


This is the children walking towards the "Tree of Life". Do you think they will still hold hands when they are teenagers?

This is Emma afraid before her first ride on Pirates of the Caribbean.

This is Ben (in the red shirt) getting drenched at Universal Studios.

Dave & Dea had fun "scooting" all over Disney World.

Here is a cute video of Emma's first experience in "It's a Small World".


Here is a video of Abby and Ben being included in "The Lion King" show.

52 Blessings - Week 4

This week I am grateful for my awesome friend Lisa Bunnell who took the time out of her busy day to help me finally conquer bread making. Yes, I am a Mormon woman who could not make a loaf of bread that was not so heavy I could use it as an anchor.

Here is a picture of my first attempt with her looking over my shoulder to make sure I was doing everything O.K. She thinks my problem was that I did not have the water hot enough, that I did not let the yeast sit long enough and that I beat the heck out of it after it raised the first time. She laughed and laughed when she she saw me start to punch it to death. She said, "No wonder it wasn't rising for you, you are beating the heck out of it. What did it ever do to you?"

Thanks Lisa!Notice one is gone - I had to try one hot from the oven!

52 Blessings - Week 3

It is time to play catch up. I have had so many blessings I have not had time to write them all down. I know, I know woe is me.

I will go in chronological order to appease my type A mind-set.
For week 3 I am thankful for my Roomba. He is affectionately called Robby by one and all in our home. I was a bit skeptical when my Nana said she loved her Roomba and that he did a great job. I bought him 15 months ago intending on bringing him back if he did not meet my expectations. I love him. I have the children get their rooms "Robby Ready"in the morning before they leave for school and I put the chairs up on the kitchen table before I leave to go to the Y in the morning and when I come home my whole house has been vacuumed. Every time I go to empty his canister it is full of dust, dirt and lint that I did not have to actually clean. I have done so many things while I have been "vacuuming". It feels good to get it done when I hate doing it in the first place.
Thanks Robbie!

What I Am Grateful For This Week - Our New House

The time has FINALLY come! Those of you who know me, know that I have been looking at houses for two years. I am sooooo excited. Mike and I have finally agreed on a house that we both like. This house is so big that we will be able to live in it for a long time. We put a contract on it this week.


It is over 4100 sq. feet and sits on over an acre, it has 7 bedrooms, 4 1/2 baths, three of the bedrooms are master bedrooms. It has a cute porch. When you first walk in there is a living room on the left with doors. We are going to put built-in bookcases in there and make it a library. There is a dining room on the right. When you walk a little farther there is an open circular staircase on the right and a 1/2 bath on the left. When you walk farther you go in to the family room. It has walls at the opening of the family room which we are going to tear down to make it more open.

There are two masters on each of the back corners of the house. The one on the left will be me and Mike's the one on the far right will be the office. When you go down the hallway where the staircase is you go into the kitchen. It has a little hallway to go into the dining room. There are triple the number of drawers that I have now and there are double the number of cabinets. There is a walk-in pantry!!!! There is also a really cool 500 sq. ft. deck on the back that is covered and has ceiling fans. When you keep going past the pantry you come to the 3 car garage on the right and dead in to the laundry room. I have never had a laundry room! You then turn left to go into the office.

Upstairs has 5 bedrooms including a huge FROG with a walk-in closet. There is a master upstairs that Abby is going to get. She is so excited about having her own room AND having a bathroom in it as well.

The exterior is all brick so we will not have to power wash ever again!

Anybody and everybody is welcome to come visit! We will definitely have the room now.

Map

My Evil Plan

I am so tired of my children not only not cleaning on Saturdays before 4pm, but I am tired of them making huge messes until that time too. So, I have come up with a PLAN!!!! I am sure this will go down in history as mom being the meanest person on earth to make them work on Saturday before they play and watch TV. I have devised a Saturday morning chore chart. They will have to do this before playing outside, playing on the computer or watching TV. I will print off a new one every Friday night of the new things that need to be done. Here is what I did this morning:

Saturday Morning Chores

Everybody has to:

· Clean their room
· Pick up 4 buckets of gumballs

Pick Two

· Wipe baseboards in kitchen
· Wipe baseboards in family room & hallway
· Dust family room (tables, bookcases & piano)
· Windex kitchen (oven, microwave & windows)
· Windex wipes all pictures in house
· Wipe down inside of kitchen refrigerator

They have to write their names down by the two that they pick. I will post a new chore chart on the kitchen wall every Friday night. When they get to be teenagers and actually sleep in past 7am this will be a good incentive to get them to get up and not get the very last two "BAD" chores.

We will see how this goes tomorrow. I will post and let you guys know.

52 Things I Am Grateful For

I am stealing this idea from Cindy Reed's blog. She is writing something she is grateful for every week this year. Thanks for the great idea Cindy!

This week I am grateful for such a sweet and loving Abby. She is always trying to do her best in whatever she is pursuing. She is a hard worker (which she got from me) and somewhat of a perfectionist (which she got from Mike). This morning I went in to her room to wake her up and there was a poster on her wall on top of her bed. This is what I saw when I came in:

This is what I saw upon closer inspection:

I guess it could be worse, she could have a poster of the Cheetah Girls up on her wall :)

Way Too Much Fun!

We had a very fun December. My children are still so sweet and innocent. They asked for the cutest things from Santa.


Abby asked for "101 Things to Make with Cake Mix", a book on how to grow flowers, artwork and some cherry coke. Santa surprised her with a digital camera. She has loved taking all kinds of pictures at all kind of angles. She is quite the artist.



Ben asked for a battery powered toothbrush and a down pillow.




Emma asked for the High School Musical 2 Barbies.




My nephew Ryan was born on December 28th. He is Jenny and David's first child. They are so excited and cute.



We had a New Year's Eve Party at our house with my family. We took a cute picture of Emma and Emily (her 6 year old cousin) with their two front teeth missing.