The Clint & Adrienne Jacobs Family

Mom's Surprise Party

2010-07-08T09:08:00.009-06:00

We got her good! She was totally freaked out (see picture for proof). Since Mom & Dad were moving to New Mexico on my Mom's birthday, we all surprised her on the Sunday before.

It was fun to have everyone (well almost everyone anyway) together one last time before they moved.

Cade, Mom & Kristen

Ashton & Evan

Most of the crew

Clint

Aunt Julie & Payton

The cake

Evan & Delaney

Dad & Evan

Mom & her cake

Clint and me

The consistently horribly rendition of "Happy Birthday"

Waiting for cake!

The grandkids

My boys

Paytie

The girls - well some of them anyway

The Colorado siblings - Me, Evan, Kristen & Ian

Girl's Night

2010-07-08T08:59:00.004-06:00

At least once a month, I go out with my girlfriends for GNO. We have so much fun together! I love my girls. There are the same 6-7 girls (7 when Sarah is back in town) that pretty much go every month. Occasionally, we have a few other girls pop in to join us for a night out. On this particular night, we decided to "chill" and eat at Mimi's.

Renee & Sarah with their "sexy" pose...

Sarah, Steffanie, Jackie, & Brooke

Me and Kristine - clearly enjoying herself!

Renee & Michelle - I adore these girls

Steffanie, Jackie, Brooke

Amber, me and Kristine

Renee

Brooke & Amber Sarah & Michelle

New Camera!

2010-07-08T08:58:00.002-06:00

I probably shouldn't have, but I knew that the end of the school year assemblies were coming up and the pictures I took in the auditorium with my old camera never turned out, so I used a 0% financing option and bought a new camera! I LOVE it. Seriously. These are the very first pictures I took with it, even before I knew how to focus it or anything. I'm sure I haven't even scratched the scratch, but at least I can get pictures to turn out even when in doors!

Laney Behind the Camera

2010-07-08T08:55:00.003-06:00

Clint always complains at me that I never post any pictures of myself. Well part of the problem is that I'm always BEHIND the camera (pun not intended...see below). On this particular morning, Delaney kept bugging me to take some pictures, so here they are. I "helped" her on one of them. I bet you can't tell which one...

Treasure Island

2010-07-08T08:54:00.004-06:00

After finishing the book "Treasure Island" Cole's class put on a play of the story. It was really cute. Cole got to be one of the townspeople. I think his favorite part of the costume was the "beard" - it's kind of hard to see in these pictures, but it was pretty funny!

Make-Over

2010-07-08T08:52:00.002-06:00

Because she is such an amazing older sister, Payton loves to spoil Laney and give her "make-overs" and paint her nails. These are a few shots I snapped after one of the make-overs. What beautiful, sweet girls I have!

I Love Chocolate...

2010-07-08T08:48:00.003-06:00

...and Laney's style!

Laney's Love Affair with the Computer

2010-07-08T08:47:00.002-06:00

This is how Laney spends the majority of her mornings when the kids are in school. She loves to play on NickJr.com and DisneyChannel.com. It is still so funny to me to see her looking so grown up navigating the computer like a pro.

Easter

2010-07-08T08:34:00.009-06:00

The kids were quite thrilled with what the Easter Bunny brought them this year. Laney got a doll, a Disney movie, and a Disney Princess doll. Corbin & Cade both got Mighty Beans and movies. Cole got the new Percy Jackson book and Payton got her teen magazines she loves. Then they got to hunt for what seemed like hundreds of eggs. All in the all, I'd say the Easter Bunny hit a homerun this year!

A Not So Snowy Snow Day

2010-07-08T08:25:00.003-06:00

Evidently we waited TOO LONG to hit the sledding hills. The snow had already mostly melted by the time the kids got there. Oops...

It Doesn't Happen Very Often...

2010-07-08T08:24:00.002-06:00

...but sometimes the kids play nicely without even being threatened first! After a nice Sunday afternoon nap, this is what I came downstairs to see. How lovely! Good job guys!

Corbin's Birthday Party

2010-07-08T08:18:00.009-06:00

For Corbin's 7th birthday, he chose to have a home party. We played a bunch of games, had a Spongebob pinata, and lots of fun! Of course Corbin got a bunch of great loot as well! We love throwing parties at our house and birthday parties are some of our favorites!

Corbin & his buddy Evan

Corbin & his buddy Paul

Corbin & his buddy Luke

Corbin & buddy Glenn

Corbin and his goofy cousin Drew

Corbin & Poppy Jay

Corbin & buddy Jordan

Pinata Time!

Corbin got the first shot of course!

Even Princess Laney took a few swings

Then Princess Payton wrapped it up and beat the candy out of Spongebob

Cole's Medieval Feast

2010-07-08T08:14:00.003-06:00

After studying all about Medieval times, the 4th grade had an end of unit celebration in the form of a Medieval Feast. There was jousting, bows & arrows, Chess (yes, it's been around that long), learning calligraphy, and of course really awesome food. The students were encouraged to come in time period costumes so obviously Cole chose something from Monty Python and the Holy Grail. He originally wanted to go as the Killer Rabbit of Caerbannog, but he heard someone else may be doing that so he chose to go as the Black Knight instead.

Delaney's New Hair Cut

2010-07-08T08:12:00.005-06:00

Delaney had been asking for "short" hair for about 4 months. After trying numerous times to persuade her otherwise, she finally wore me down and got the opportunity to ask Courtnee to cut it short for her. Here is the end result which she was of course thrilled with.

Santa Came!

2009-12-29T18:37:00.039-07:00

Yup. And he brought some really great loot! Thanks to Uncle Mastercard, we were able to get a few fun things for the kids this year. Now I need to hurry up and find a job to pay for it all!

Now buckle up and get comfortable because this is gonna be a long ride (or rather, long post).

For our 3rd year running, we celebrated the 8 days of Christmas. Each night (except the night that Grandma Cheryl stole the kids) we had a mini-FHE lesson centered on Christ, the REAL reason for Christmas, and then each child got to open 1 gift. I think this little idea of mine is finally paying off! The kids were much more involved this year and Payton gave us a pop quiz on day 7 and everyone passed with A+s! We talked about why His birth was such a big deal, the prophesies that came to pass leading up to and including the birth and His life, different attributes that Christ possessed, the symbols of Christmas, etc. It was fantastic and much more spiritual than our "old way" of doing Christmas!

Christmas week was busy as usual (the blessing/curse of living near so much family). On the Friday before Christmas, Payton had a sleepover to celebrate her birthday. She turned 12. It's still kind of freaking me out a little bit. She isn't in primary anymore. Crap.

Anyhow, she had some friends over and we made brownies and brookies (brownies with cookies mixed in - freaking awesome), popcorn and then watched New Moon. The girls stayed up until about 3 am so it wasn't too bad!

Saturday we spent at the school helping to host a fundraiser for the 6th grade EcoWeek trip. Clint took our ping pong and foosball table to the school and we watched other people's kids for a few hours. I came home exhausted (the kids were too) from humiliating the boys at knock out. My arm was sore for the next 4 days...man I'm getting old!

On Sunday, Jay & Cheryl took the kids down to Denver to have Christmas with the extended Jacobs family.

Monday found Payton, Laney and I baking 300 sugar cookies and a few pans of fudge.

On Tuesday, we had 32 of our closest friends over (and some of their moms) for a cookie decorating and gift exchange party. That was quite fun! The older girls did the majority of the decorating while the boys played. But everyone went caroling and that was funny! We scared a few people when they opened the door just because of the sheer number of us! Then we came back the house and the kids had a gift exchange. I was surprised by how well it went. We only had 1 kid get mad about his gift being stolen, but he is only 3 so we kind of expected that!

On Wednesday, we just took it easy and cleaned up the mess from the day before.

On Thursday, Clint took the kids sledding while I went out to do some last minute shopping with all the other crazies. Then my side of the family came over for dinner. It was great fun!

On Christmas morning, the boys woke up to find themselves trapped in the basement. Clint and I stapled wrapping paper over the basement doorway to keep them out so we could sleep in a little bit. They woke up at 6 and played Wii for a few hours. Clint and I woke up at 8 and then had to drag the sleeping beauties out of bed.

Evidently, the kids were very good this year. They all got what they asked Santa for. They also got some things they didn't ask for.

Payton got teen magazines, fuzzy socks and cool hats.

Cole got a projector for his video gaming systems and movie watching as well as a subscription to Sports Illustrated for kids.

Cade got his Nerf Vulcan N Strike EBF25.

Corbin got Wizards of Waverly Place the Movie and a Wii Sports pack.

Laney got a Princess shopping cart.

Another Christmas tradition we have is the pickle. We don't set out cookies and milk for Santa (he gets enough of those anyway, right?) we set out a pickle ornament each year. Santa hides the ornament on the tree and whichever kid finds it first gets the pickle gift (an extra gift Santa leaves behind). This year, Cade found the pickle first and got G-Force (a movie).

Because the kids are always in my room on the computer, we decided to get them their own computer so they'll stay off mine!

I also found a really great deal on Beatles RockBand, and since we had so much fun playing it at Ian's birthday party, I just had to have one! It's been an absolute blast!

Clint got a navigation system and watch (that actually tells time) and he got me a new laptop since mine bit the dust several months ago and I just hadn't been the same.

After opening up the gifts and cleaning up a tiny bit, we had to hurry and get ready to head to the Jacobs for their annual Christmas brunch. It was yummy as usual with homemade scones and jam. The kids got a bunch more cool stuff and we came home exhausted (with a few sick kids to boot).

All in all, it was a fantastic Christmas week. I'm still recovering, but sure that I'll be pining for it all again here in just a few months!

The A Word

2009-12-12T23:14:00.002-07:00

So we have been really bad potty mouths around my house lately and Laney has decided she is going to be the bad word police. Anytime she hears one of the unmentionables (stupid, hate, idiot, etc) she yells out "Hey, that's the A word!".

I'm not really sure who told her what the A word is or means, but she's been telling us that a lot lately. And it makes me giggle every single time!

Man, I have really cute kids!

The Chub Club

2009-08-26T22:16:00.006-06:00

Ok blogworld - I'm officially making it officially official and public. I'M GONNA LOSE WEIGHT. In fact, I'm gonna lose weight while belonging to a group called the Chub Club (and still Jazzercising, of course). If you wanna lose weight too (and live locally) let me know. Below is the invitation I am sending out to friends:

Please do not take offense to this note/invitation, as that is absolutely NOT my intent! In fact, you should feel honored that we think you are cool enough to potentially join our VERY exclusive club (I totally felt like I was 10 years old again just now). I am inviting you because I know you're a mom and not many of us are thrilled with what that has done to our bodies!

For about the 10th time in 3 years, I’ve decided I need to lose about 25 pounds before February. I’ve been trying to figure out what I want to do about it. I can’t be anorexic because I love food. I can’t be bulimic because I hate throwing up and I can’t get addicted to meth because I like my hair and don’t want to be a picker. So I decided to go the more boring route and I considered joining Weight Watchers (again) BUT I really don’t want to pay $10/week to go listen to a boring meeting. I have already purchased all their gear (cookbooks, point calculators, scales, etc.) so then I thought maybe I’d just go it alone – Kamikaze-style. Then reality struck and I remembered that I am a total self-sabotage-r! I know myself well enough to know that about once a week I’ll have a bad day and eat an entire cake. I actually NEED the weekly meeting and another pair of eyes checking the scale because I let myself off the hook too easily! I NEED accountability!

So I borrowed an idea from my mother-in-law and put my own twist on it. It’s called the Chub Club and we’d like you to be part of it with us. Now you may be asking, what the heck is the Chub Club and who the heck is "us"? The Chub Club is an "exclusive" accountability group. We are going to meet once a week and be accountable to each other. I am hosting this with Michelle and Sarah (who are both also trying to lose extra funnel cakes from their mid sections). We will meet a Sarah’s house, so it’s the same scale every week, on Fridays at 9:30 am beginning September 11. During the first week, we will do our initial weigh in so there won’t be any money leaving any pockets that day (see below). We will also set the “official” ground rules. They will be something like this:

1.) If you have gained weight during the week, you will pay $1 for each pound gained (we’re not doing ounces because I think that’s goofy and seriously, who says “I weigh 142 pounds and 7.5 ounces anyway?). Whoever loses the most weight that week wins the pot! We only pay money if we GAIN weight, instead of paying every week to go to some other meeting with people who don’t love and adore us as much as we do each other. AND this way we are incentivized by money instead of chocolate! It’s a win-win-win, right?
2.) If you skip a week (not planned in advance) there will be a monetary penalty
3.) Those who disclose the current weight or goal weight of other members will “pay” dearly (probably be on the receiving end of a swirly or something totally embarrassing like that)
4.) Crying will also be monetarily penalized (ok, maybe not but we’ll see)
5.) If the meeting lasts for more than 1/2 hour, Adrienne's head will explode because she hates meetings and has other crap to do on Fridays anyway (as I'm sure do all of you!)

If you want to join us (and we hope you do and I haven’t made you mad enough to spit just by inviting you) please let me know! You can use whatever kind of eating plan you want (does not have to be Weight Watchers) or you can go Helter Skelter and not have a plan. We are only getting together to be accountable to one another, to bask in each others' glory, to share tips and tricks we may have learned and to not take ourselves too seriously!

Oh, and if you commit to join our Chub Club, we need you to commit to being there EVERY WEEK. Otherwise, we may just skip the weeks we know we consumed half the carton of Haagen-Dazs and that won’t be fair to those ladies that have been angels.

Side Note: If you don’t want to lose at least 15 pounds, please disregard this message and consider yourself uninvited, as we consider you a skinny-mini and this is the Chub Club.

Hope to hear from you soon! We won't think too poorly of you if you're a skinny-mini (since we will be soon too!).

Hoping my boobs aren't the first to go,

Adrienne
on behalf of Michelle & Sarah & Myself

City Park Pool

2009-08-07T08:16:00.010-06:00

I was lucky enough to get our family some City Park Pool passes this year. We typically go at least once a week. My kids love it there, especially when friends join us! I don't usually take many pictures because I leave the camera where it is dry and safe, but finally snapped a few at the pool this week. Here are Corbin and Cade swimming in the "deep end".

For some reason, Delaney was not at all interested in having her picture taken and would dive under water each time I tried.

Cole with an uncooperative Laney.

Cole loves going down the "big" slide. It has a pretty big, steep drop that the kids like.

Corbin prefers going down the "orange" slide. This one is a little more chill with it's winding loops. He is pretty hard to see in this picture because he's back in the shadow of the slide.

Corbin is too short to go on the slides, but he takes a swim test every time we go to prove he can make it off the slide and to the stairs without drowning. He does look pretty little in the water!

This is a pretty standard picture of Cade at the pool. He loves his goggles!

Payton was there too, but for some reason, she was never around when I had the camera!

I did get a quick video of Laney's swimming skills. She is doing so well. She can swim about 10 feet unassisted. She knows how to come up for air (she always swims under water), but she sometimes forgets to get back on her belly and use her arms, so she kind of gets "stuck" in the water and doesn't get far. This video is mostly of her just diving in because we were in the shallow area and she just kept popping back up instead of doing much swimming.

Berthoud Day

2009-08-01T23:35:00.014-06:00

We haven't been in a few years, so I took the kids to Berthoud Day on the first Saturday of June. We got there a little later than I hoped, but we were still able to find a pretty good spot on the parade route. The kids got tons of candy and goodies that were being thrown out.

They were waiting pretty patiently for the parade to begin.

Delaney loved holding all of the candy for everybody! And of course she grabbed quite a few pieces for herself!

Photo op in front of a cool, red truck.

Playing with all the inflatables.

Climbing the rock wall. Corbin wasn't thrilled and wanted down almost immediately. Everybody else reached the top!

Laney & Daddy

2009-08-01T23:29:00.003-06:00

Delaney loves her daddy! And she loves having her picture taken, so I figured it was high time to document 2 of her loves.

Cade's Baptism

2009-06-09T04:44:00.007-06:00

I cannot believe I forgot to get this posted! I totally thought I had already done this.

Cade got baptized on April 11. He was baptized with 2 other girls from our ward, Emily and Mikayla. It was a great baptism! He was so excited, but I think he really understood how important this was because he was very mature about the whole thing and reverent (instead of his usual bouncing off the walls silliness).

The program was held in the chapel to accommodate all of the family. It truly was a beautiful service. Grandpa Jay gave the talk about receiving the gift of the Holy Ghost. The other 2 girls Cade got baptized with asked their primary teacher to give the talk about baptism. Each family went to the baptismal font separately, which worked out nicely.

Of course, Grandpa Jay and Grandma Cheryl were there. Seth, Courtnee, Taylor & Drew came. Uncle Ian and Aunt Kelsey (fresh off the plane from their wedding in CA), Grandma Cindi, and Uncle Evan were there too!

After the baptism, we headed back to our house for a barbecue. We invited everyone who came to the baptism and those who helped us move in to our new house. There were about 45 people who came and it was fun to get to know some people from our new ward as well as see people from our old ward! The weather was a little bit chilly, but all in all, it was a beautiful day I hope Cade will remember for a long time!

Laney's Broke Leg (Yes, I am aware I'm tapping into my southern roots with this title)

2009-06-05T01:31:00.008-06:00

First, my deepest apologies for not updating my blog in forever. I did receive your emails and texts asking if we were ok, and yes we are, but the 60 days of May were as usual, crazy busy. Anyhow, now that we're back to just normal chaos, I'm going to make an effort to get caught up in the blog world.

Delaney had a first this week. Unfortunately, it was the first middle-of-the-night-emergency-room-visit. Not that great a first, if you ask me, but I guess in our family, broken bones are inevitable. My kids aren't huge milk drinkers and I thought that was the problem, but Delaney drinks more milk than all of us combined, so that theory just shot out the window! We haven't yet had stitches, but we've had 7 broken bones so far and 2 other ambulence rides, so I'd say we've had our fair share of hospital scares and visits!

Around 7:30 pm this past Monday, Delaney, Payton, & Corbin were jumping on the trampoline together. Allegedly, Laney got bounced pretty high and when she came down, her left leg banged on the tramp frame. Since Laney has a flair for the dramatic for all owies, I figured it was just sprained so I let her lie around and ice it. Laney is one of those drama princesses who cries every time she remembers she got an owie, so I didn't know how serious she was this time. Other than the major crying at first, she really wasn't crying about it, just whining a lot. However, when she still couldn't get comfortable and fall asleep past midnight, I figured I'd better take her in!

I called the hospital in Loveland and the hospital in FC (since it's about equal distance to them from my house) to see who had the shorter wait. PVH only had 3 people in the waiting room, so I decided on that. It was raining cats and dogs, so I bundled her up and headed for the E.R. We only had to wait about 15 minutes before being taken back to a nurse. That time when quickly though because one of my brother, Evan's, ex-girlfriends was the hospital EMT so we passed the time chatting. Below is a picture just after Elena took us to our "room". Laney was freezing, so she got a warmed blanket which she LOVED (not pictured)!

Once we got to the back, the nurse did a quick exam and ordered x-rays. That took the longest, but Laney was so awesome during all of this, that the x-ray tech gave her a little puppy dog. She told Laney to name it something cool, so Laney chose Alice. Yes, that would be after Alice the vampire on Twilight. When asked why Alice, Laney responded "Like Alice in the baseball game on Ty-ligh". Can you tell she has a pre-teen sister???

I tried to get a good shot of Laney on the x-ray table, but she really wasn't excited to get a regular picture at the same time we were taking pictures of her bones.

To make a long story just a bit longer, we got the x-rays finished and sure enough, our little princess fractured both her tibia and fibula (just above the growth plate and ankle). The doc said that had she been an adult, she would have gone in immediately for surgery and would be in a cast for 4-6 months! Whoa! Luckily, she's made of rubber, so it wasn't that bad for her now!

Unfortunately, they had to put on a full-leg splint and that was pretty much awful. She peed everywhere the first time I took her to the potty (you try going potty with your leg sticking straight out and see how well you do before judging!).

We got back home around 2:30 and daddy came home for his lunch break to see the damage himself.

Neither one of us got much sleep that night. Laney couldn't get comfortable and kept whimpering and making all sorts of noises that kept me up too. Since it was raining so much, Clint didn't have to work his day job and came home to relieve me for a few hours so I could sleep a little (yes, he got to sleep later that afternoon too).

Around 10 the next morning, we took her to the ortho where she got a hard cast put on. The good thing is that it only goes up to her knee, but the bad thing is that they won't do a waterproof cast for 3-4 weeks because they don't set as hard. I still haven't figured out how to bathe her well and although it has been too cold to go to the pool this week, I know we're in for torture next week! All in all though, Laney has been awesome with her cast. She isn't allowed to put any weight on her leg at all but she doesn't mind being carried around everywhere and being waited on by everyone! She has enjoyed watching lots of movies and coloring and reading so far. And yes, my bed does usually have bedding on it, but it was bedding laundry day when I snapped this shot.

As you can see in the pictures, she is wearing a pull-up. I pulled these out of a donation pile because, although she is potty trained, since she has to wait for someone to get her there, I wanted to avoid any more messy accidents that might get her cast wet!

As evidenced below, she was horrified at the thought of all of us writing on her pretty pink cast, but she actually loves showing it off now and even said thank you to daddy for drawing pretty pictures on it for her!

Giveaway

2009-05-02T18:31:00.001-06:00

A really cute blog I came across recently is giving away memberships and other fun stuff this week! Go check them out here. This is where I got my cute new layout from! I love it!

Easter Weekend

2009-04-15T08:19:00.006-06:00

We had a very busy Easter weekend. My kids get Easter break (yes this is separate from Spring break) and got a 6 day weekend. We began by hosting a surprise luau/birthday party for our friend Abe on Friday night. We helped Amber (his wife) keep it a surprise by having it at our house. Everyone had a great time karaoking and playing Catch Phrase...oh and eating of course!

Then on Saturday morning, we bundled up and headed to Windsor for an Easter Egg hunt. They blew the whistle at 10 am and the hunt was over in less than 30 seconds (literally). I honestly didn't even have a chance to get my camera out! Then Clint & I dropped the kids back off at the house and went to run errands.

Saturday afternoon was Cade's baptism. I'll post about that in another post.

After the baptism, we headed back to our house for a barbecue. It was a baptism/gratitude barbecue. We invited everyone that helped us move (out of the old house and into the new house). That too was very fun! It was nice to see our friends from the old ward again, and get to know our new friends a little better.

The boys woke up Sunday morning to find themselves "barricaded" downstairs. The Easter bunny is a very wise person, as he/she knew the boys would be awake well before anyone else in the household and, to be fair, needed to stay downstairs instead of looking around for the hidden eggs.

Luckily, they weren't tortured for too long, as we got the girls up at 8. The kids first went to their baskets where they found candy and movie tickets taped to 3-D glasses. Unfortunately, I turned camera duty over to Clint and he got caught up in the hunt, so we didn't get very many stills shot.

The hunt begins. Laney got a 5 minute head start. Even though there were LOTS of eggs hidden on the floor, Laney still went to great heights to get hers!

Then Corbin got his turn to start.

After Corbin, Cade got a 2 minute jump before we let the hounds loose (read: Cole, Payton, Dallen & Chase). They actually found most of the eggs on their own, but Clint and I did have to help them find some of the more camouflaged eggs. They each got to find 25 eggs (yes the Easter bunny spoils my kids). The eggs were filled with even more treasures, so I'd say they made off pretty well!

On Monday, I took the kids to the movie. We saw Monsters vs. Aliens in 3-D. It was a really cute, funny movie we all enjoyed!

Here is some video of the hunt, check out Corbin's snatching skills ...

Toddler Speak

2009-04-06T12:46:00.003-06:00

It always cracks me up to listen to little people talk. Delaney is non-stop from the moment she wakes up until she is actually asleep. Because I have so much practice listening to her, I usually can understand most everything she says. Today, she told me she wanted to watch a movie and when I asked which one, I could not understand what she was saying. Finally, I got it, but had to get it on video.

About a year ago, her favorite movie was Willow (yes the same one with Val Kilmer). The way she said it always mad us laugh and I could just kick myself for not getting it video recorded!

Since we were already in her bedroom, I decided to get a shot of the entire princess room since I haven't posted any pictures of it. We will probably paint the room eventually, but here is what it will look like for a while at least.

Let's see if you can figure out which movie she was referring to!

Cade's Photo Shoot

2009-03-31T13:44:00.005-06:00

This is the 3rd and final post for today!

We needed to get a picture of Cade for his baptism invitations. Sometimes Cade is difficult to photograph because his "posed" smile is very....fake. So here are some of the shots we were able to get.

Here is the winner...after I cropped it so it's only a head shot.

Cade's Birthday Party

2009-03-31T13:12:00.009-06:00

One of the frustrations of my life is....camera batteries! Ugh! It seems like I always run out of battery at the worst time...so I have few pictures of Cade's birthday, but it was fun. The party was originally supposed to be outside, but with the snow storm we had this week, we had to change our plans. We ended up just playing a bunch of games inside and the kids really enjoyed that!

We began the party by having a relay race. The kids had to put balloons in between their knees and jump or walk to the other side of the room. It was very entertaining to watch!

Then we got the kids sugared up...through a donut eating contest. They weren't allowed to use their hands and we had kids with donut glaze in their hair, on the back of their heads and of course, all over their face.

After cleaning up the donut mess, we had a bean bag toss and a pinata.

Here are the kids waiting to fill their empty bags.

Cole & Cade taking a whack!

Everyone got a whack at the pinata, and because we went smallest to biggest, we made it all the through one round before it got smashed apart and the candy went flying!

The kids ended up playing Wii and arcade games and then we fed them "real" food (pizza). We ended up skipping the cake & ice cream, since they had bags full of candy from the pinata!

All in all, the party was a hit!

Snow Days!

2009-03-31T11:53:00.008-06:00

Last week we got dumped on. And the kids LOVED it! Of course, we had to break out all the winter gear again and go take advantage of the sledding hill not far from our house.

The kids were all outside playing in the snow when Laney woke up from her nap. I was working on a file and told her I would help her get her suit on in a minute. She came in shortly thereafter with this "suit" on saying she was ready to go.

Luckily, her daddy knew which suit I was talking about and got her ready to go play outside. I was impressed, she lasted about 1/2 hour before coming back in!

The boys had fun with their dad at the sledding hill. There were tons of people there, but they still got some really good runs in. I have a few videos at the bottom that show some of their successes and failures (biffs as we like to call them).

Goofy Corbin...

And Corbin's goofy daddy...

Here are the boys enjoying their day out! Cole, Dallen & Corbin

Cade getting some air (or after getting air anyway)

Chase

A look UP the hill

Dallen using his long arms for balance!

Delaney's Princess Birthday Party!

2009-03-26T13:05:00.011-06:00

Last Saturday was Delaney's princess party. There were a few other princess friends from neighboring kingdoms who were able to attend as well. Clint (the king) put up some cool wall decorations, so it looked like we were in a grand ballroom!

Delaney loves to dress up in her princess dresses, and had a hard time deciding which princess to be. I helped steer her to this super cute gown.

I asked an older princess, who used to be one of my beehives, to come teach the younger princesses how to behave like a proper princess. Princess Kyra taught the girls how to curtsy, drink properly from a tea cup, wave a wand, and of course, she showered them with princess glitter as well. Princess Kyra also headed the games and showed the girls how to play Princess & The Pea (as you will see, Delaney wasn't getting the hang of it), Kiss the Frog Prince (another one Laney had a struggle with) and Princess freeze dance.

Here are pictures of the Frog Prince and the lips. They played it just like pin the tail on the donkey.

Here are all the princesses. Sydney, Kennedy, Karson, Kyra, Kendall, & Delaney.

Princesses Sydney, Kennedy & Delaney

This is Princess Kennedy looking as cute as Snow White ever did.

Princess Kyra reading a princess story to the younger princesses.

Since the Royal Baker was on Spring Break, the responsibility rested on my shoulders to create a cake fit for a princess. As stated in previous posts, I'm no cake decorater, so this is the best I could come up with. I will point out that Payton & Dallen had the honor of actually making the cake and I think they did a pretty good job!

Of course, Princess Delaney loved having her princess friends over and enjoyed her cake & ice cream and opening presents. I'm not sure why she's giving us a gopher face right here...

Happy Birthday Cader!

2009-03-20T07:55:00.011-06:00

Cade's 8th birthday was on March 12. Because of the significance of the 8th birthday, he was picked up after school on that day by Grandma Cheryl and Grandpa Jay to head to Temple Square in Salt Lake. It is Jacobs tradition to take the 8 year old birthday child to see Temple Square before their baptism. Cade had a blast! He got to go with his cousin Drew (who turned 8 on Feb. 12) and they rode horses, got to go to the Draper Temple open house, Temple Square and lots of other fun stuff.

With all that said, we didn't get to celebrate with him until he got back home. For his birthday dinner he chose yellow death (mac & cheese to the rest of the world). After dinner we had his requested chocolate on chocolate cake. Cade had a good time trying to blow out the candles on his cake (see video below). And no knocks about my cake making abilities, eh?

His party is next Saturday, so he really hasn't gotten many presents yet. Ours is still in the garage, but he did get a card from Grandma Bonnie (thanks!) and new scriptures from Grandma Cindi, which he was really excited about!

My handsome nephew, Dallen

Our pre-teen, Payton, who pretty much always looks like this lately...at least Corbin is happy!

Cade & Delaney clearly enjoyed their cake!

The Girls Love Michelle!

2009-03-17T08:00:00.013-06:00

Last Saturday was my girlfriend, Michelle's, birthday. Another friend of mine had surgery recently and the guys he worked with rented 75 pink flamingos to put in his front yard to cheer him up when he returned home. I thought it was so clever and fun, that I stole the idea and wanted to do that for Michelle. However, I never got a call back from the youth group who rents the flamingos. So I searched and searched, but no stores in Northern CO had any for sale (for a reasonable price anyway). So I changed my game plan and went to both Big Lots and The Dollar Tree to get flower stakes instead.

I bought as many flowers as Michelle is in years (you'll have to figure it out yourself since a woman never tells their age). I also searched and searched for a garden gnome or something of that sort for under $20 but I couldn't find one. They are so dang expensive! So my brilliant husband was generous enough to offer me one of his hunting goose decoys to desecrate...I mean decorate. I even got pics of him getting the goose ready for the party (don't tell his friends)!

After making the posters, getting the goose dressed, and loading everything into the car, I headed down to Amber's to pick her up. We also grabbed Sarah on our way over to Michelle's and finally got there close to midnight. Brooke & Renee weren't able to join us because they were both out of town.

We knocked out the yard in less than 20 minutes and I think it turned out pretty great! We also decorated the driveway with sidewalk chalk.

The pink sign says "Happy Birthday Princess"!

Michelle was leaving at 6 am the next morning to take Hannah to a volleyball tournament. Derek got outside first and started yelling for Michelle to get out there. She was thrilled and surprised and said it made her laugh!

I wanted to get better pictures in day light, so I went over there the next afternoon and while I was taking video, they came outside to leave for dinner.

Corbin's Choir Concert

2009-03-16T07:43:00.008-06:00

Corbin's choir concert was last Thursday night. We got there a little later than we planned and it was standing room only. We ended up in the back corner, so it was difficult to get good pictures. It was also pretty dark in the PAC (Performing Arts Center) so these pictures are not of the greatest quality.

Of course we took all of the kids with us, which they were thrilled about...

This is Corbin, and his buddy Alec, before the show.

Walking into the PAC. Looking good, buddy!

He looked so handsome in his 3 piece suit and he did a very good job performing. We weren't surprised to see that he was placed front and center!

They started the night singing some songs that they tapped the red sticks to.

They sang all sorts of songs but the few I got on video are the tail end of Head, Shoulders, Knees & Toes and the beginning of Where is Thumbkin.

Look at what a little paint can do!

2009-03-04T16:08:00.003-07:00

So we got this great house exactly where we wanted to be, which is why you haven't heard from me in a month. I've been busy moving! It has 5 bedrooms, is at the end of a cul-de-sac and is right next door to the clubhouse, which has a pool, playground, basketball courts, and tennis courts. So far, we LOVE it! The floor plan is very close to the floor plan of our old house in Loveland. It's spaced out really well. The backyard has a huge, gorgeous patio too!

We are living together with my sister and her 5 kids, so we got to move 2 families in! Yes, it will be an adventure! Anyhow, the problem with this house is that the colors were....well, let's just say, it was pretty much sensory overload when you walked in the front door.

Luckily, I have a hubby and in-laws that are no strangers to painting, so I could see past the color smorgasbord. Here are just the main floor "before" pics. I neglected to take pics of anything else we painted, but just use your imagination and then twist that with colors that should never go together and you'll get the idea!
Yes, that is gold combo'd with purply-pink. Don't ask why, I have absolutely no idea!

Here are the after pictures of the same walls. We also painted the Florida (patio) room, which was orange, stripped "garden mural" wallpaper in the master (it was as hideous as it sounds), painted a baby blue room and stripped the wallpaper in there too, and some other touch up places around the house. Ugh...it was a busy weekend. Thank you so much to Jay & Cheryl and Kristen's friend Brad for all their help!We didn't have the time or energy to strip the paper on the main floor, but I still have plans to do that...probably in 6 months or so.

Keep in mind that we just moved in 2 weeks ago, so yes, my house is still in shambles...no judgement about my cleaning (or lack thereof). You're just supposed to be looking at the paint!

Hair Cut

2009-02-03T00:15:00.003-07:00

I got a hair cut. Not just any hair cut, a much shorter hair cut. I like it. Luckily, if I tire of it, my hair grows so fast, it won't take long to get back to "normal". I've also kept it at my natural color, which is a first for the last 10 years! I'll probably go more blond in the spring, but for now, I'm keeping it dark. Anyhow, here is "The Cut". It didn't turn out anything like I expected (my hair rarely behaves as it is asked to), but I think Courtnee did a fab-o job! If you are in the market for a hair cut or color or whatever, give Courtnee a call!

Corbin's 6th Birthday

2009-01-27T13:54:00.006-07:00

As is Jacobs' family tradition, Corbin wanted his winter birthday party at the pool. Luckily there is a fantastic indoor pool in Loveland that is cheap for parties. So we've been there many, many times. I am a dork and forgot to grab extra batteries for the camera, so I only got a few before they went dead. But my mom got there for cake & ice cream and took some pictures of that! As you can see, everyone enjoyed their chocolate cupcakes and Corbin really enjoyed his party!

Girl's Night + My Birthday = Fun Times!

2009-01-22T18:08:00.009-07:00

So for girl's night this month, we also celebrated my birthday. We went to Applebees and ordered 1 of everything on the appetizer menu, apart from the shrimp. Yes, we had plenty to eat. After stuffing ourselves silly and talking over each other for 2 hours, we headed to my mom's basement for some games and karaoke. We karaoked for just a bit and then began playing a game I got when I was 13 called "True Colors". OMGosh, we had a BLAST playing it. I forgot to take many pictures because I was having too much fun, but here's what I actually got.

Sarah, Amber, Michelle, Renee, Brooke, Kristine & I all had a really good time together! Thanks girls!

I also shot a short video of some of the karaoking. I did warn them that I was putting it on the blog (whisper: I don't think they heard me).

Chuck E. Cheese

2009-01-16T04:55:00.011-07:00

For Christmas, Casey & Brittny gave the kids a trip to Chuck E. Cheese, one of my kids' favorite places on earth! On December 30, we all loaded up and headed over. As expected, the kids had a great time spending their allotted coins in no time flat, asking for more and saving up tickets for really great prizes that usually break or are thrown away before we get home. Luckily, we were saved from the depths of pizza hell though, as Casey & Brittny's charity overflowed and we were able to grab Little Caesars on the way home.
Laney kicked my butt at air hockey and then moved on to play guns with her daddy.

Payton got to ride a horse - FINALLY!

Gavin learned to play skee-ball.

The most popular game for the day was Deal or No Deal - Payton was the grand prize winner on that one, walking away with 40 tickets.

As you can see, we didn't really enjoy ourselves...good thing we are all so convincing for the camera! Unfortunately, (or fortunately depending on how you look at it) our trip was pretty uneventful (no cops coming to arrest Grandma; I guess we're a little more boring than the Hansens) but we had a really good time nonetheless playing all the different games and getting to hang out with everyone.

Today Only! Freebies!

2009-01-13T22:55:00.005-07:00

Extra! Extra! Read all about it! Get your freebies here! You can only sign up for this today, January 14, 2009, so do it NOW! Just click here to be directed to the Suave site where you can sign up to recieve a coupon good for free shampoo. If you don't want it for yourself, get it anyway and donate it to House of Neighborly service or something. My motto has always been "If it's free, then it's for me"!Also, Auntie Anne's pretzels will give you a coupon for a free pretzel (with purchase of pretzel dog) by going here.

Christmas with the Jacobs

2009-01-13T21:39:00.008-07:00

The Sunday after Christmas was our day to spend with the extended Jacobs family. As usual, we gorged ourselves. All of the "blood" Jacobs eat Pigs...a German food I haven't acquired a taste for in 12 years. They stink up the whole house while cooking and that's pretty much my #1 rule about food...If you have to cook it outside, don't put it inside your mouth. Halitosis, anyone? I think it is a pretty good rule. But I'm digressing.

This is a picture of super cutie Trent (you can kind of see Brittny, Jenni & Courtnee...yes I am the only Jacobs sis-in-law without an "ie" name).Back to Christmas. After dinner, we went downstairs where we attempted to take family pictures. They all turned out crappy. Aunt Tracy brought little goodie bags for all of the kids. Inside there were these little blow up balls with a snowman inside the blew up too. We are a close knit family, but no, Cameron & Courtnee are NOT making out. They are just trying to be efficient at blowing up the balls so the kids could go play. Then the boys/kids played pool and ping pong while the girls did dishes and stuff. After that, the real party started and we karaoke-ed. They really need to add that word to the dictionary. There I go again.Below is a video of the howling...I mean karaoke-ing. Clint, Taylor, Moon and Andrea had a fantastic time desecrating 80's monster ballads. They kept making the player skip because they were really belting out the tunes!I planned to take a bunch of pictures of everyone, but my camera disappeared at some point during dinner. From the quality of the below posted photos, it is evident that the culprit was an underaged minion. I did my best to clean them up (since I'm like basically a professional photographer and everything).

Here is Chase. He is Moon & Tracy's youngest.
Looks like Grandpa Jay found the camera theif!It's always fun to see our relatives from far away Denver!

Christmas Evening w/ Punky

2009-01-13T21:04:00.003-07:00

I mentioned in my previous post that Ian and his bride-to-be, Kelsey, came by with her Christmas gift. Sorry Ian, this is the only shot I got of the two of you together. Kelsey looks cute though!Anyhow, the kids were all downstairs playing Wii, so we got to spend some time with adorable Punky, for just a little bit before taking her down to the mad house.

Here are Karson & Cole showing their cousin love. She is the most laid back puppy I've ever seen! So cute too! The kids all adored her! Even Laney!

Christmas Day!

2009-01-10T20:28:00.020-07:00

I'm finally getting around to blogging about Christmas day! Of course, I woke up before anyone else on Christmas morning, but trying to be the adult about it, I stayed in bed until after 7 before poking at the boys to get them to wake up.

When I went upstairs to rouse the girls, this is how I found Delaney...she was "too many" tired still! But she eventually got up and was excited that Santa brought her the kitchen she was positive she was getting.

This year, Santa didn't think it was fair that the boys always get up early and snoop through the gifts before the girls finally roll out of bed...so he hid their gifts and sent them on a scavenger hunt. Delaney didn't have to look for hers (she can't read yet anyway) so she saw her Santa gift first. There is video of everyone below. You'll have to pause my awesome playlist music (on the right) if you want to hear them. They are hard to hear anyway because, being in the Christmas spirit, Cheryl shared her cough with just about all of us...so it can be hard to hear above the coughing. I hope they all load because I'm putting 4 videos on here.

Anyway, the boys scavenger hunt had them looking under the kitchen sink, inside the dryer, and finally they found their Santa gift in the coat closet. They were pretty excited with what they found there...

Santa told Payton to answer the darn phone that was ringing in her underwear drawer! Yes, Santa brought her a cell phone...can you believe it? She also got all of the CD's she wanted (Aly & AJ, Taylor Swift, Jonas Brothers, Miley Cyrus, Radio Disney, etc), the Twilight & Jonas Brothers posters, lots of cute dangly earrings and some really cute shoes & clothes.

Cole got the Magic Tree House book he wanted, Battleship the game, lots & lots of Pokemon cards, and a sweet new sled.

Cade got tons of Bionicles stuff, pokemon cards, and a new lunchbox (since Batman was too babyish apparently)..

Corbin got tons of his figurines including Hulk, Iron Man, & Wolverine, and lots of great puzzles and a really cool Transformers book.

Laney got food for her kitchen, a Disney tea set, lots of dollies and Princess figurines, and dress-ups.

All of the kids had Wii games & movies in their stockings or under the tree. And no, they did not lack for anything this Christmas. They are very spoiled (read: loved) children!

Below is a slide show of the other pictures I took. I didn't take that many because I was too caught up in the present opening fun.

As is tradition, we had a brunch with buttermilk pancakes and all the fixins. It was fun having all of our immediate Jacobs family there! We are so glad that Casey & Cameron and their families made the trek up from Arizona to be with us!

We spent the rest of the day just playing with new toys and relaxing. Clint & I picked up Kristen's 4 youngest that evening and they had a sleep over with their cousins. Ian & Kelsey stopped by...I'll write about that in another post.

We really enjoyed our Christmas and hope everyone else had a wonderful Christmas as well!

Staying Focused

2009-01-08T11:44:00.004-07:00

I am having a really hard time staying focused today. I was paying bills this morning and couldn't find my stapler. So I went upstairs to look for it and found it in Payton's room. I noticed she still had a poster that hadn't been put up, so I climbed up on the top bunk and stapled it up on the wall. Then, on my way out of her room, I noticed that the washer was done, so I put that load in the dryer and put a new load in the washer. Then I walked past the kitchen and noticed that the granola bars I just bought were still on the counter. I opened the cupboard to put them in there, but it was so full of half-full boxes, it wouldn't fit. So I cleaned out that cupboard. While cleaning out the cupboard, I remembered that the missionaries are coming over for dinner, so I ran out to the freezer in the garage and pulled out a pork roast to thaw. Then I went back to cleaning out the cupboard and put a pile of the empty boxes on the counter. Then I walked in the pantry to grab the garbage to take out when I noticed that the cereal containers looked dirty and were mostly empty. So I cleaned out the cereal containers, stuck a few in the dishwasher, started the dishwasher, and grabbed the bag of garbage. I took the garbage and the empty boxes out to the garage, where I remembered that I needed to get my make-up bag out of the car. While in the car, I thought "I should really clean this out", so I cleaned out the front of the car, found the antennae I lost, found our new insurance cards and put them in the right spot, organized my glove box, cleaned out the ashtray (change tray) and got all of the trash out of there. Then I took my pile of "car stuff" back into the house, where I set everything down on the counter because I noticed the counters were dirty and needed to be wiped down. After wiping down the counters, I grabbed the stuff that needed to come down to my office and just got back down here. Now I'm sitting in front of my messy desk really wishing I could remember where the heck I put the stupid stapler!

Christmas Eve

2009-01-02T10:57:00.014-07:00

My Christmas Eve started off not so good. I got up really early and went and got a tooth filled. Who goes to the dentist on Christmas Eve anyway? Then I had to go to my brother's house to get some gifts out his garage and closet that he was kindly storing for us. It was FREAKING cold and really windy, so I was really tense and somehow I threw out my back. OWWWWWWWWW! So then I had to drive a stick shift home with my back on fire and of course, my chiro was closed until Monday. Ugh! That shot my plans for making my first fruitcake ever. I even had Cam buy me some rum so I could make a real fruitcake. I've never had one, so maybe next year. The rest of the day was ok...I spent a lot of it on the floor icing.

Here are some pictures & videos from Christmas Eve. We typically spend Christmas Eve with my family, but since we did it earlier in the week, we spent Christmas Eve at our house with the missionaries, Jay & Cheryl and Casey, Brittny & Gavin. It was pretty low key, but nice. We had a little problem with the turkey earlier in the day. With the intent of saving oven space, we tried using the roaster for the first time but it burned the bag and let all the juices out, so the turkey ended up in the oven after all. It still tasted pretty good, even though it was a tiny bit more dry than usual.

After our small feast, we got together in the living room to sing carols, read the account of Jesus' birth and open some gifts. There is a video at the bottom of this showing our fantastic caroling skills!

When we were at my mom's house for Christmas, Laney got bonked in the nose with a wooden silverwear holder. She kept picking at it, so we finally put a bandaid on it. Here she is showing how sad her "owie" made her.

Currently serving in our ward are Elder Denton from Houston and Elder Seve (se-vay) from New Zealand. Denton said we had a pretty typical night, the same as what his family usually does. We asked Elder Seve what Christmas traditions he had and he said they usually have a pig roast, since it is summer there. And yes, we made sure he has been able to sample true American fare and he had his first ever PB&J and Mac & Cheese (what I call yellow death). Elder Seve taught Clint, Casey & Denton how to do a traditional Maori Christmas dance. Below is a short video clip of that. As a show of our gratitude, we got both elders a pair of wool socks, since they've been freezing this winter and they don't have a car.

Of course after all the apparently boring stuff (according to Clint & Corbin who made it a point to let us know what a snoozer the night was) we continued our 8 days of Christmas and the kids got to open another gift. Cole was ecstatic about his new baseball book. Cade got a set of Pokemon cards he was VERY excited about. Corbin loved his Spiderman hoodie, Laney got a new doll named Kelly, and Payton opened some big dangly earrings. Another great gift night. What a bunch of spoiled kids!

Christmas with the Reeves' Family

2008-12-26T22:21:00.002-07:00

Last Sunday, we had Christmas with my side of the family because my parents and brother Evan were going to spend the actual day of Christmas in Utah with my sister Fallon and her family and my brother Cale. My bro, Ian, didn't fly in until Christmas Eve, so we missed him there. Here is a slide show of some of the festivities. Everyone had a good time hanging out together and eating good food.

Payton's 11th Birthday!

2008-12-26T21:00:00.018-07:00

This past week has been a whirlwind of activity. I will be posting a lot tonight and tomorrow, but not necessarily in chronological order. On Monday, it was Payton's birthday. That morning, my girlfriends, Michelle, Renee & Elizabeth, came over with their kiddos and we decorated the 300 sugar cookies I made a few weeks ago. Yes, we had 17 kids under 1 roof. CRAZY! I moved the kitchen table out of the kitchen and laid down painter's plastic so the kids could just go to town and the clean up would be easy. The cookies didn't look very pretty, but they were SOOOOOO delicious! The plan was to go deliver them to a few nursing homes and sing carols while there, but with baby sleeping schedules, etc. we never got to do that. Clint, the kids and I delivered them to some families in our ward on Tuesday night instead. Renee, Tristan, Samantha, Sydney & Kennedy

Dallen, Ben, & Nicholas Hannah & Delaney

That night, all of our family that was in town came over to celebrate Payton's day and we had dinner. Renee, Elizabeth and I made 5 pans of yummy enchiladas! Payton wanted cheesecake, so we also made 4 from-scratch cheesecakes. We had cherry, raspberry, and strawberry toppings and 1 plain cheesecake. They were delicious!

My dad & Evan My dad & Karson & Kendall Corbin, Cole & Drew
Cam, Trent & Taylor

Ashton & Laney
Payton got a lot of great loot! She asked for posters & CDs of her favorite bands and big, dangly earrings. Here she is with some of it.

I was in the kitchen from 8:45 am until 7:30 pm and I was EXHAUSTED and very tired of doing dishes! Fortunately, everyone had a great time and the food tasted wonderful!

Here is yet another wonderful, family rendition of the Happy Birthday song!

High School Musical On Ice

2008-12-26T20:44:00.008-07:00

A few weeks ago, I took Payton, Laney & Payton's friend Jacinda down to the Denver Coliseum to watch HSM on Ice. We had a pretty good time (thank you again to the radio station for free tix!). Delaney did ok during the show and really liked seeing Troy. The girls had fun singing along to all the songs and learning one of the dances from HSM3. I was REALLY tired and didn't feel well that night, but I'm glad I sucked it up and took the girls anyway because they had a pretty good time!

We Wish You A Merry Christmas

2008-12-18T11:21:00.003-07:00

Delaney has watched Mickey's Twice Upon A Christmas everyday for the past few weeks. She walks around singing this all the time. As you will notice, she doesn't have ALL the words down correctly yet. It's still pretty dang cute though! And yes, occasionally I actually get her dressed, brush her teeth and do her hair.

Reverse Psychology

2008-12-17T10:20:00.004-07:00

Laney has been a bit of a booger lately...well, I guess I shouldn't say just lately, because really she always is. Anyway, she will NOT do what I ask her to. However, when I say "don't" it's pretty much guaranteed she'll run and do it immediately. Here is proof. Please excuse the mess in the background, I've been cleaning out closets and dumping everything in piles on the floor to sort and post on Freecycle.

SANTA IS REAL!!!!

2008-12-15T18:14:00.002-07:00

Cole accidentally posts things to my blog occasionally. Here is one of them. Cole was trying to post this on his blog, not mine...

Page Pets & MySpace Layouts

The Blog Frog

2008-12-14T19:13:00.002-07:00

I'm trying to win a $200 gift certificate to Target, so whaddya say, will you help a sista out? Click here and I'll get an entry! I also have a link down on the left side over there ---->

Merry Christmas!

Tech Savvy at Any Age

2008-12-10T11:04:00.006-07:00

I've been trying to do some work on my desk top and Laney is pretty high maintenance and demanding. So I asked her if she wanted to watch Dora on Nickjr.com (using my laptop) and she said yes. She pulled the little computer tray onto her lap and I thought it looked so funny with her little feet sticking out. It kind of looks like the witch's feet under the house on Wizard of Oz!

PHOOSON!

2008-12-06T22:51:00.010-07:00

I alluded in a previous post to how lucky I am at winning contests. The day before Thanksgiving, I hopped in my car to go give blood and then run to Wal-Mart. As usual, I flipped on the radio to find something to listen to. As I was seeking, I tuned the dial to 96.1 KISS FM and heard them say something about Fantasy Flight. As FF was the way I won an 8 day all inclusive trip to Cancun 2 years ago, they had my full attention. Usually with FF there are certain call times and if you are the 9th caller, you get a shot at guessing which seat on the fantasy flight airplane is the one that gives you a ticket out of Denver. For details, right click here and open in another tab. However, when I began listening, I heard someone make a guess, then another caller, and another and figured out that they were just letting people call in and take guesses. Not wanting to miss out on the fun, I grabbed my phone and started dialing. The line started ringing and I got through. I guessed seat 21F and, believe it or not, THAT WAS THE SEAT! I was excited and starting screaming and carrying on when I realized I had no idea what I had just won. Apparently, the FF contest had been going on for a few weeks and they had to give the seat away that day. They told me about some concert in Phoenix called Phooson (Phoenix + Tucson = Phooson) with the new morning show personalities, JohnJay & Rich. I didn't really care, I just wanted to go somewhere, so they took my info and I needed to find a guest to go with me.

Without going into the gory details, Payton ended up getting to go with me! She was so excited because one of the headliners was Jesse McCartney. We had a blast! It was a quick trip, we flew out of snowy Denver on Friday morning and came back Saturday afternoon. The concert was 8 hours long. We also saw Mass Appeal, Varsity Fanclub, The Academy Is, Secondhand Serenade, Tokio Hotel, Pussycat Dolls, Katy Perry (my fav of the night...she is adorable), Rhianna, & Fall Out Boy, but not in that order. Since it was an all ages show, it actually wasn't too bad (I was afraid I'd have to run out of there covering Payton's eyes and ears).

I completely forgot to take my camera, so I had to run to Wal-Mart in Phoenix to grab the cheapest digital they had...hence barely any pics to post since the camera sucked taking pics in the dark. For good pictures right click here and open in a new tab.

Here is a picture of Payton & I documenting her very first ever concert!

The venue was Cricket Wireless Pavillion, which is outdoors, kind of like Fiddler's Green. It was gorgeous weather...perfect for a concert! We had pretty good seats and could see everything really well. It did get pretty cold around 10 pm, so I'm glad I swiped the blanket off the hotel bed before leaving for the concert. Needless to say, Payton was on cloud nine (especially after seeing JM in real life). Here is a short vid of him singing "Beautiful Soul"...don't expect much, the camera really sucked!

Pie Anyone?

2008-11-25T20:03:00.004-07:00

So for the first time in my 30 years, I made pie FROM SCRATCH! I'm pretty sure it is the most amazing pie EVER! I made a pumpkin pie, apple/cranberry, sweet cherrity, and a peach pie with delectable candied pecans. Are you salivating yet or what?

Anyhow, I've been the mad baker lately. Within the past few weeks, I have made 300 sugar cookies, a bunch of kiss cookies, magic bars, no-bakes, pumpkin rolls (a total pain to make but so yummy) & my mom's famous fudge. The kids had fun helping me with the sugar cookies and they can't wait to frost them in a few weeks. Tomorrow I will head to the grocery store to get the ingredients for homemade oreo cookies and the yummiest peppermint ice cream cake. I better take advantage of this crazy baking frenzy while I'm in the mood!

Here are pictures of the first 2 pies. YUM!

Tagged: By Two

2008-11-25T19:19:00.002-07:00

So I've been tagged probably 17 times in the past 30 days and I've been rebelling and not replying (so not me). So, here are my answers to 2 of the tags I got.

Two names you go by:
1. AJ
2. Hunny

Two things you are wearing right now:
1. jeans
2. pink fuzzy socks (it's cold down here)

Two of your favorite things to do:
1. GNO (that's girls night out, sicko)
2. game night

Two things you want very badly at the moment:
1. A new house
2. A new job for Clint

Two favorite pets you have had/have
1. Milo the bestest westie in the world
2. Sadie when I was hallucinating and thought I liked cats

Two things you ate today:
1.Honey Nut Cheerios
2.Meatloaf (seriously)

Two people you have talked to today?
1. Ian
2. Fallon

Two things you're doing tomorrow:
1. Going to lunch with my best buddy Tony
2. Going to Wal-Mart to buy more stuff to bake (see above)

Two longest car rides:
1. Michigan by myself
2. Whenever Clint and I are fighting

Two favorite holidays:
1. Christmas
2. Halloween

Two favorite beverages:
1. Water w/ no fruit in it!
2. Diet Dr. Pepper
1. What is your occupation right now? Stay at home mommy - FINALLY!
2. What color are your socks right now? Pink/white stripes
3. What are you listening to right now? The kids playing guitar hero
4. What was the last thing that you ate? Salad
5. Can you drive a stick shift? Yes
6. Last person you spoke to on the phone? Cheryl
8. How old are you today? 30
9. What is your favorite sport to watch on TV? Volleyball or football
11. Have you ever dyed your hair? Yes
12. Favorite food? Chocolate
13. What is the last movie you watched? Twilight (disappointing)
14. Favorite day of the year? Christmas Eve
15. How do you vent anger? Cry and write in my online journal
16. What was your favorite toy as a child? I don't really remember...maybe my life-size Mickey Mouse
17. What is your favorite season? Spring
18. Cherries or Blueberries? Blueberries or maraschino cherries
22. Living arrangements? Let's not go there
23. When was the last time you cried? Earlier today...I'm a bit emotional lately
24. What is on the floor of your closet? Shoes, shoes, & more shoes. Also a karaoke machine & printer paper
25. Who is the friend you have had the longest that you still talk to? Besides family members, I would have to say Jess M
26. What did you do last night? Burned some CDs
27. What are you most afraid of? Losing a child
28. Plain, cheese, or spicy hamburgers? Bacon cheeseburger
29. Favorite dog breed? Westies for permanent, labs for puppy love
30. Favorite day of the week? Monday – everything starts anew.
31. How many states have you lived in? 5
32. Diamonds or pearls? DIAMONDS!
33. What is your favorite flower? Stargazer Lily

Cole's Birthday Party

2008-11-11T10:15:00.016-07:00

Cole got to spread his birthday out a bit this year. This past Friday, he had his party at an indoor pool. We've done lots of parties at this pool and it is always one of the kids' favorite places. I like it because it is pretty cheap compared to most indoor parties and they do all the set up & clean up! Anyhow, he had 21 of his closest friends there. Here are some pictures and some video of the night. You can read Cole's blog to hear about all the gifts he scored!

For some reason, I wasn't thinking clearly when Cole asked me what time to put on his invitations. I told him 6-9 (pool operating hours). We've never done a 3 hour long pool party. I was pooped by the end of the night and I didn't even get in the water! I was just sure the kids would sleep in the next morning, but they were so excited about helping Cole open his presents that everyone was up in my house by 6:30 on Saturday morning! Ugh! So much for sleeping in and recuperating!

The kids were pretty wound up all night!
Payton & her girlfriends McKenna & Ember
Corbin & his best buddy, Glenn.Taylor & DelaneyCade and his buddy, Logan
Clearly enjoying their cupcakes! Victoria B, Peter, Trent, Charlie, McKenna, Payton, Hunter, Cole & Drew.Jackson & Brexton
Victoria C, Cole, & Victoria B
Cole, Charlie, Trent, Peter, & BlakeCharlie, Calvin, Cole, Trent & Cade in line for the diving board. You can kind of see Peter & Misty in the background on the 2nd board.

Here is the gang doing a fantastic rendition of "Happy Birthday"...see below for video

Here are the boys playing tackle football with a nerf football Cole got from Blake.

Harvest Farms

2008-11-08T21:28:00.013-07:00

I win things all the time. I've won trips to Mexico & San Diego. Tickets to concerts, shows, movies, etc. The kids always ask me what I've won this week. Well, I was lucky enough to score us some tickets to a big pumpkin patch/corn maze. Unfortunately, we were so busy the week of Halloween, that we weren't able to use them until Nov. 1. However, that really worked in our favor as there were not very many people there. We started just by walking around and checking things out. The kids had a really good time getting their pictures taken in the cut-outs around the farm. Then we went to see the farm animals in the petting zoo.

Then the kids raced some cute little John Deere tractor trikes around a big racetrack. Corbin won and gloated about it for the rest of the night. After the tractor race, we watched some pig racing (we were feeling really red neck by then). The kids then jumped around on some giant bales of hay. I got some good action photos of them there. Then we went calf roping. It was funny to watch the kids whip those lassos around!

Finally after all of that, the real fun began. We bought some tokens and headed to the batting cages. There was a pitcher who pitched us real pumpkins. We all had a blast smashing the bajeebies out of the pumpkins. Clint and I both had pumpkin mush in our hair that we were picking out for the rest of the night. I got some pretty good video of the pumpkin smashing.

After that, we used our remaining tokens for the corn cannons. They were really cool. They would shove ears of corn down the barrel and then the kids could shoot them (they were supposed to aim for targets out in the field). Payton actually hit one! The rest of the kids shot their corn straight up. It was amazing to see how high those ears of corn went! Laney didn't much like the corn cannons because they were really loud.

When we were all out of tokens, we headed to the corn maze. You can get an aerial picture of this year's maze here. We entered at the top in the circle and headed through Celebrating (see picture for info). We ended coming out of Colorado (the exact opposite side of where we should have come out) about an hour later. Luckily, since it was the last day of the maze being open, there were lots of man-made short cuts through the dead corn field, which made it much easier once we finally admitted defeat and just wanted to get out!

As we were leaving, we decided to take a quick family photo. As we were posing, a woman came up to us and handed us another $30 in tokens saying she bought way too many to use and was leaving. SCORE! You can probably figure out that we immediately headed back for the pumpkin smash. After everyone getting another 6 pitches there, we spent the remaining tokens at the pumpkin blaster (like the corn cannons but bigger, scarier and way louder).

We finally decided we were hungry and needed dinner. Then Corbin saw the hay ride. They had just gotten back from one ride, so we piled in and waited for the driver to take us around. And we waited...and waited...and finally after 10 minutes of that crap, we decided the driver wasn't coming back, so we left.

What a fun day for everyone!

Holy Halloween Batman!

2008-10-31T20:59:00.019-06:00

So, this has been an extremely long day for me! About 4 months ago, I volunteered to be in charge of the 3rd grade (Cole's class) Rome Day Festival. I was thinking that we would be in Fort Collins by now, so it wouldn't be that big a deal. However, we are still 1/2 hour away and it was a big deal! But I guess it was worth it because the kids had a really good time on our trip to Ancient Rome and everything ran pretty smoothly. We did clay reliefs, bulla lockets, mosaic pictures, Roman Baths, chariot races, and marshmallow catapults. It was a blast. However, I'm pretty sick of being at the school!

Our plane ride to Rome
The kids got split up into 4 different social classes. Patricians (wealthy upper-class), Plebians (more middle class), Soldiers and Slaves. Cole was a plebian.Here is Cole pulling in the chariot races
Corbin had his Nursery Rhyme recitation. He chose Humpty Dumpty. I was trying to see him a little better when I was recording him, so I flipped the camera so this is sideways. Proof that I don't think clearly on no sleep (we were at the school until almost 10 pm last night setting up Rome). Corbin is posing with his best buddy Glenn.

Cade had his Westward Expansion party today and he got to go to a ranch. He learned some square dancing moves, raced on stick horses, and took a hay ride. He said he LOVED it all! Here he is as a cowboy.

Of course, this evening we went out trick-or-treating. Clint took the older 4 kids and our nephews Taylor & Drew around the neighborhood. I hung back with Laney. Here are some pictures of the night and a little video of Laney all by herself!Here is "scary Hulk"

Annual Trunk-Or-Treat Event

2008-10-29T20:56:00.009-06:00

Tonight was our ward trunk-or-treat party. We had a chili cook-off with some very delicious choices (and hot dogs for the kids because what kid actually likes chili?). Clint was upset with me that he didn't get to hit his goal of 5 full bowls (we were in charge of the spooky swamp fishing and didn't have much time to eat).

The primary and YM/YW put on a bit of a carnival, so the kids had fun eating donuts from a string, playing musical chairs, getting face painted, playing BOO Bingo, potato sack racing, etc.

Of course, the highlight of the night was the trunk-or-treating. They got tons of candy and the kids are reminding me of how much more they will get on Halloween night. I already scheduled their 6 month dental cleanings for Nov. 20, so that should give them enough time to gorge themselves and then get their teeth fixed up!

Our darling princess wanted to be "Scary Hulk"...I was just sure she would change her mind and want to be a princess, so I had to go out at 10 pm last night to find something to throw together for her, as she was not budging on the Hulk idea! I think she looked pretty good, considering...

Corbin (for the 2nd year in a row) was Spiderman

Cade was a fierce ninja

Cole was a scary scarecrow guy (I forgot to paint a nose on him...oops!)

Payton took her friend Rikishia. Payton was a vampire and Rikishia was a genie. They had fun doing their own make-up!

Choose Life

2008-10-29T20:32:00.000-06:00

Payton's Volleyball Game

2008-10-27T13:33:00.006-06:00

As stated in previous post, I have not been a good photographer/mom lately. So this past Saturday, at Payton's 2nd to last game, I made sure to have the camera on hand! Payton is doing well. She started off the season with the best bumps/passes on the team. She spent most of the season concentrating on her serves, and she can bang that ball over the net now! She is #3. All in all, she liked playing volleyball!

Cole's Last Single Digit Birthday

2008-10-24T21:18:00.006-06:00

I've been horrendous about taking photos lately. All I got last night of Cole's birthday dinner was us singing (pitch perfect, I might add) Happy Birthday and him blowing out the candles. I make a vow to take lots of pics at his pool party on the 7th! He is such a goof! He woke up really early because he was so excited about his day. He also told me that yesterday was a great day...one of the best of his life! He LOVED his gifts (Broncos poster, Broncos watch, Broncos football, Pokemon cards & album + the Ultimate Pokeman Book AND IronMan DVD). He seriously made out this year and he's told me thank you about 11 times today! Oh, and yes, that is a pink cake you see in the video. Cole feels secure enough with his masculinity that he had no problem asking for strawberry cake,even after I explained that it was pink cake w/ pink frosting. He even let Delaney & Payton decorate it with sprinkles. What a guy!

Crazy Hair Day

2008-10-24T21:11:00.004-06:00

Payton's school had a crazy hair day today. I don't really have any idea why, and neither did she, but we just went with it. This is the do she came up with. Such ugly hair on such a cute girl! Sigh...

Cole's Incredible FHE

2008-10-05T13:37:00.008-06:00

For those of you not from the LDS culture, FHE stands for Family Home Evening. We have set aside 1 night each week (typically Monday) where we spend some time together just with the family. We sing, pray, learn about the gospel (and other good stuff), play games and ALWAYS have a treat. A few Mondays ago, Cole was in charge of FHE. He put together an awesome lesson about the scriptures. The date was Sept. 22 and while preparing for his lesson about the scriptures being a treasure, he realized that Joseph Smith dug out the Gold Plates (Book of Mormon) on Sept. 22. He thought that was REALLY cool. He assigned us some scriptures to read about why we have the BOM and then about how Joseph Smith came to have it. To illustrate his point, he made a treasure map for us to find some sort of treasure in our back yard. The picture I took of the map didn't turn out well, but you can get an idea what it looked like here.

After we grabbed our shovels and headed out back, we were lucky to find the X right away and began our dig. We found a wrapped package and took it back in before it was completely dark outside. Corbin was the lucky one who got to open the wrapped treasure. He was so excited!Cade got to choose the song, which was "Book of Mormon Stories". Grandpa Jay was trying to help Corbin do the actions, but it wasn't going that well. As usual, Payton was in charge of treats. She LOVES to make brownies and that is what we had.

Conference Time!

2008-10-03T22:39:00.003-06:00

It's almost conference time and I am really anticipating the messages this year! Deseret Book has a free conference packet you can download and print for your kids to keep them somewhat engaged with conference (and hopefully very quiet). Click here to get it!

Thieves Among Us!

2008-09-13T17:21:00.006-06:00

I'm sure you've all heard about people who have been abducted and had their kidneys removed by black-market organ thieves. Well, here's my story.

My thighs were stolen from me during the night a few years ago. I went to sleep and woke up with someone else's thighs. It was just that quick. The replacements had the texture of cooked oatmeal. Whose thighs were these and what happened to mine? Finally, hurt and angry, I resigned myself to living out my life in jeans. And then the thieves struck again!

My nice flat tummy was next. I knew it was the same gang, because they took pains to match my new gut with the thighs they had stuck me with earlier. But my new gut was attached at least 3 inches lower than my original. I realized that I'd have to give up jeans in favor of long skirts.

Two years ago, I realized my arms had been switched. One morning I was fixing my hair and was horrified to see the flesh of my upper arms swing to and fro with the motion of the hairbrush. This was really getting scary - my body was being replaced one section at a time. What could they do next?

When my poor neck suddenly disappeared and was replaced with a turkey neck, I decided to tell my story. Women of the world, WAKE UP AND SMELL THE COFFEE! Those "plastic" surgeons are using REAL replacement body parts - stolen from you and me! The next time someone you know has something "lifted", look again - was it lifted from you?

THIS IS NOT A HOAX! This is happening to women everywhere, every night!

WARN YOUR FRIENDS!!!!

P.S. Last year I thought some one had stolen my boobs. I was lying in bed and they were gone! But when I jumped out of bed, I was relieved to see that they had just been hiding in my armpits as I slept. Now I keep them tucked in my waistband for safekeeping!

Water World

2008-09-13T16:53:00.007-06:00

I know I'm a day late and dollar short with this post, but hey, at least I'm getting to it within a month! For Grandma Cheryl's big 5-0 birthday, we all went to Water World. It is her birthday tradition to go to Elitche's every year. However, this year, Elitches was closed because of a private party (jerks). So we opted for Water World. It was a blast, but I had forgotten about all those ridiculous hills. AND you have to drag your own darned tube up those stinkin' hills! Even with all the Jazzercising I did this summer, I was exhausted by day end! I pretty much hung out with Delaney & Corbin all day doing the "little people" rides. Although we had fun anyway! We all went on the Voyage to the Center of the Earth ride. Then split up so the big kids could ride the scary stuff and the smaller kids could ride the less scary stuff.

Since, surprisingly, there is a lot of water at Water World, I didn't take my camera with me on very many of the rides, so the pictures are fairly lacking to document the experience. However, here are the few shots I got...

Corbin's First Day of Kindergarten!

2008-09-03T19:41:00.009-06:00

Woo-Hoo! Corbin had his first day of kindergarten today! We are all so excited! He is "finally" in the "big kid" school! We LOVE his K teacher, Mrs. Bennett and I know he will have a great year. He looked so grown up and handsome with his Justice League backpack & Spiderman lunch box. We took some shots of him out in the hall by his frog.

We shot him by the story time fire place.

Then we got a picture of him at his "desk".

And finally a picture of his "locker". What a good looking kindergartener! Those little 5 year old girls better watch out! He's a heart breaker!

The Blessed First Day of School!

2008-09-03T19:31:00.005-06:00

I love my children. A lot! However, they have been out of school since April 27th (because of the move). Needless to say, we were pretty tired of each other and the last few weeks have been rather torturous. Tuesday was Cole's & Cade's first day of school! They were excited, I was excited...it was all good!

The boys go to a school with a dress code uniform, but you can't really tell with their sweatshirts covering them up (it's getting cold in the morning already). I think they look so handsome in their uniforms!

The only bummer about school starting up is that I am making a 45 minute commute to take them to the school we LOVE since we are still living temporarily in another city. Our day begins with a 5:30 am alarm and we are done with chores and getting ready and out the door by 6:45 am. We all know it is worth it and the boys are thrilled to be back with all of their friends and I am thrilled that I can drop them off every day knowing they are in competent hands and will actually learn something! Yay for a great charter school!

Dove Hunting

2008-09-03T19:24:00.005-06:00

Ok, so clearly this is not my area of expertise, but it is a part of our lives, so I am blogging it. On Labor Day, Clint & Grandpa Jay took the boys out for the first day of dove hunting season. They shot 9 (no way do I let my boys have a shotgun yet...they just retrieve at this point and shoot a pellet gun). Anyhow, they had fun and even helped Clint clean them!

Never Hold In Your Farts!

2008-08-22T11:03:00.004-06:00

My grandpa forwarded me an email with a bunch of funny pictures & captions of animals. Although I'm not much of an animal lover (I'm not a hater either, I just prefer to be pet-less). these pictures really tickled my funny bone. Hee-larious!

My Fashionista Diaries

2008-08-20T21:32:00.005-06:00

As Clint and I were driving down the highway tonight, there was a man who was walking on the side of the road wearing a badly done Tye-dye shirt. A few minutes later, Clint chuckled and we had the following dialogue:

C: You will not believe what I was just thinking about.
A: If it's not the usual 3, then yes, I'm stumped
C: Do you remember those old shirts called Hypercolor?
A: Oh my gosh, I totally remember those. Those are basically the reason that the dumb ink tags started getting put on clothing because everyone wanted one of those goofy shirts, but they were so expensive.
C: They were always a different color under armpits.
A: Gross!
C: Did you ever have one?
A: No, I didn't own one, but I borrowed one from a friend one night out and couldn't keep anyone's hands off of me
C: Typical...I know I'm totally dating myself here talking about hypercolor clothing, but I was just dying about that goofy fad! So, I'm going to put a poll on here to find out how many people owned one, wore one, or don't even know what they are! So take a second to vote before you leave! It's just to the right of this post ---->

I'm in Love!

2008-08-17T12:58:00.018-06:00

I'm in LOVE! His name is Edward. He has really smooth, silky looking pale white skin. The most amazing eyes and lips and body. He's absolutely breathtaking! I met him on a blind date...of sorts. My girlfriends, Eliza and Liz, introduced us. I was a little reluctant at first (being married with children does that to me sometimes), but I finally relented and picked him up at Wal-Mart this past Wednesday. I had no idea that it would be love at first site...I haven't been able to put him down. Oh, did I mention...he's a vampire...and he's fictional...and he only lives on the pages of the Twilight series of books. So yeah, I've turned into one of THOSE girls! I finished the first 3 books in 1 day each and now I'm 1/2 way through the 4th (2nd to last) book. So, Eliza and Liz, may I crash your movie party and head to the theatres with you on November 21st to fall in love again? This time on a movie screen? Although I don't know if I'll be able handle Cedric Diggory as Edward, since I had such a crush on Cedric a while ago that I'm still not totally over (in another series)!

Click here to go to the movie site!

Girls Night Out

2008-08-14T16:51:00.003-06:00

From left: Kristine, Michelle, Renee, Me, Brooke

So I've been trying to decide all day long if I was going to post this or not. I really dislike having my picture taken, let alone posting it on a public blog. But, I always have so much fun with my girls that I had to put a post in here about that.

Last night, we went to a yummy Italian restaurant to celebrate Renee's big 3-0. We stayed for 3 hours (of course we left a huge tip...duh!) making a scene and having an absolute blast. There was an 84 year old woman sitting at the table behind us with some of her family and she came over as they were leaving to let us know how much she enjoyed watching us and that it was very important to keep having girl's nights!

Payton asked me what we could possibly have to talk about for 3 hours and I tried to explain to her that we talked about everything and generally there were 2-3 conversations going on at the same time. She wasn't understanding and I told her she probably wouldn't for a few more years at least.

We go out together for girl's night at least once a month and we always celebrate our birthdays together. We typically gorge on great food and sometimes we catch a flick (most recent Dark Knight...Renee is obsessed with Christian Bale), go bowling (always hilarious), or Karaoke (my favorite activity). We decided that we're going to the next girls night out at the Melting Pot (gorging) and then we are going to do a pottery painting night out.

We are not an exclusive group (we invite lots of girls to come with us) but I think that we scare many of the faint-hearted away as they don't usually return for a 2nd helping of us. We started hanging out regularly after our friend Jessi put a Bunko group together about 6 years ago (or so). We all have kids in pretty much the same age range and we range in age from 30-40ish. Some of us work at an outside "job" and some of us are stay-at-home mommies. As I've never really experienced the "close girlfriend thing" since I moved so much "growing up", I have been surprised that for the most part, we are pretty much drama-free. Of course, we let each other vent a little bit, but usually when we are at girls night, we just have fun!

Clint knows how important girls night is to me and he has never said anything negative about me going (even when I stay out until the wee hours of the morning)! I really appreciate that!

Payton's First Day of School

2008-08-14T11:47:00.005-06:00

Payton started her first day of school today. The boys got back into the charter school we are in love with and don't begin until after labor day, but Payton hasn't gotten in yet, so she's starting at the neighborhood school until she gets into the charter. This will be her first experience riding the bus to and from school and her first experience in a public school. The school is huge and she is really excited about the giant library there. She was so excited about the bus and about meeting new friends in her 5th grade class.
She picked out her "rock star" outfit. Pretty cute with her faux sleeves, plaid skirt & black boots. I've gotta say "That girl's got style"! And we chopped her hair before school started and I think it looks awesome on her!

I can't wait until she gets home today to tell me all about it!

Glendale Pool Fun!

2008-08-08T22:10:00.003-06:00

We rented a really cute house in Glendale to be close to the college while Jay, Cheryl and I were swapping time with kids and taking classes at Nouveau Riche. My day to stay with kids was Monday and we spent about 3 hours in the pool that morning.

I kicked the kids' booties in our under-water-handstand competition. They were pretty impressed that I could walk all over the pool on my hands!

I finally got Laney to swim by herself. It took about 7 minutes of ear-piercing screaming, but then all of a sudden she stopped, looked around, and figured, "hey, I can do this". After that, she tooled around that little pool by herself and had a blast going wherever she wanted!

The college was fantastic (as always) and I took some really great classes. I took an awesome Lease Options class, Tax Strategies and Subject T0s. My favorite would have to be Subject To. I learned so much in that class!

We drove to Arizona this time (to get to both the reunion and the college) and the kids, of course, watched movies on the way to and from AZ. Clearly, there was a very scary part in one of the movies, so Laney just covered her eyes and screamed. We also stopped at a McDonalds in Globe, AZ on the way home to get some food and stretch our legs for a bit. The kids always love the Play Place!

Cliff Jumping at the Water Hole

2008-08-08T22:01:00.003-06:00

The favorite spot at the reunion (hands down) was the water hole. The water was pretty frigid, but it didn't matter to any of the kids! They had a blast climbing up and either swinging or jumping from the top! They were pretty daring and really had a great time!

Family Reunion Camping

2008-08-08T21:40:00.002-06:00

Last weekend, we went to the Annual Hardy Family Reunion (Grandma Cheryl's extended family). They have a big campout every year up in the mountains, along a river, near Pinetop, Arizona. Although quite beautiful, it was surprisingly hot up there this year!

The kids (young and old) had a blast playing the Zip N' Hit, jumping off the "cliffs" at the water hole and playing in the mud after the rain.

Fortunately, Cameron, Jenni (and new baby Trent) and I shared a small cabin in Pinetop, so I wasn't asked/required to camp (yuck) so it wasn't so bad. We had a big karaoke night on Friday (of course I was right in the middle of that) and got our sorry butts kicked in the volleyball tournament on Saturday. Clint had fun hanging out with his brothers and acting like a kid right along with them. Saturday night was the talent show, where Cole got a huge encore request for his belly dance (always popular).

Corbin's Last T-Ball Game

2008-07-30T09:37:00.004-06:00

Corbin's last T-Ball game was last night. He was pretty bored all season, but he isn't old enough to put into coach-pitch yet. Because he is a constant goof-ball, we couldn't get a good picture of him in action, so we just made do with what we could get. There are more pictures and details about this season on his blog.