Room Wars

One day my friend Annie and I were having a messy room war via text. I didn't have time to do any cleaning and apparantly noone at our house did either...big surprise I know. (I am the only one who cleans except the cleaning lady who comes twice a month and why does she come since everyone just thrashes on it the day after? Oh, wait, my sweet Drew is usually really good about helping. He wakes up most mornings and makes his bed and picks up his room. He now even makes Miles bed now that they are sharing a room. He is a good kid.) The girls room is always a disaster!!!!! These girls are pigs! They were constanly blaming each other for the mess. They now as of 2 weeks ago are in their own room. They are in heaven, but now the pressure is on to keep it clean and not blame anyone else. Every month or so I would have to go in their room and do damage control. This could only happen while they were at school, otherwise Audrey wouldn't let me throw away that piece of string that meant so much to her, or that pen that doesn't work anymore, but it's pink and we can't throw anything away that is pink! You know what I'm talking about. 1 view 2nd view my bad kitchen day

February in Vegas

Still catching up and will be for a while. Hoping to get completely caught up by the time i leave for Utah next week since I will be there for the whole month of July. Life in Vegas is hot! I have done my share of complaining about the weather here. But...from November 1st until about the beginning of May, it is awesome! The weather is very mild, and I still wear flip flops in the winter sometimes. It never snows, and seldom rains. It rarely is overcast and when it is, I find myself yawning and feeling like doing nothing. I love the fact that it is sunny 350 days a year. There is something about that energy that you get from natural sunlight. I am good to go, go, go all day with projects, errands, the gym, and all the junk my kids do, and I rarely take a nap. But...in October, I am soooo sick of the heat! I want fall. I want the smell of fall. I want leaves falling of the trees, and I want to start wearing sweaters. I want to bake something with apples in it. But, that doesn't happen here. It is still 90+ degrees in October. When November comes, it just cools off, but doesn't feel like fall. ANd when Christmas comes, I want snow, and cozy, and to drink me some hot cocoa on a cold winter day. Nope, we don't get that either. It looks the same, but just a tad cooler. Now it is summer, and we are in the low 100's each day. I think I am used to this heat. Owen and I call each other lizards cause we get cold when it's 60 degrees outside. The heat has not bothered me yet this summer. But, I think it has been mild. Now if we were to get to maybe 115, it may be a different story. Well, now that I've bored you with the weather report, I'll show you some pictures of life in Vegas in February. Miles on his motorcycle AUdrey on her scooter The kids at the park waiting for Maggie to get out of Blue Cat group. Drew and his wild friend Jacob at our house. Audrey loves our trampoline. TOo bad it's so hot now that it doesn't get jumped on. But in the winter/spring, she lived on it.

An attempt to catch up.

Now that school is out, and I don't have anymore major projects to help the kids with, I think I may attempt to update by blog. I went looking through my pictures and realized how behind I really was. Here we go.... Presidents Day! I know, this was only 4 months ago. We went to Utah for Presidents Day and had a great time. Right before we went, I had an unexpected ectopic pregnancy. It was pretty scary, and according to the Dr. it was really bad. It had burst into my abdomen and I was on the verge of bleeding to death. the strange thing is that I didn't even know that it was that bad until after my surgery--which by the way, they had to take one of my tubes for obvious reasons. I had been spotting for 2 weeks, but thought I was just having an irregular period. I never thought I could actually be pregnant. Then on Friday, I tried to get into my family Dr. Since I didn't have an OB, and He couldn't see me. I thought I'd wait it out over the weekend and go in on Monday. That night I decided to take a pregnancy test which was positive and so I just assumed I was having a miscarriage. The next day I was humped over the toliet in pain, chills and nauseous. I decided I better go to the ER with a little push from my friend Cherie who I really think was God sent. She had had an ectopic before, and I think she knew that's what was going on. I farmed the kids out and Owen took the rest of the day off and took me to the ER. Sure enough, that's what it was, and 8 hours later and $30,000 I went home. We were stressed becuase my insurance doesn't cover anything pregnancy related, but they were nice and payed $25,000 of it. So....the reason I post this is because exactly a week later, we were in Utah and my friend Maria and her family were going tubing at soldiers hollow. Owen was going to take the kids and I was feeling so left out. So I sucked it up and went. I felt fine, but some of those hills were a little bumpy! Afterwards we went to lunch and then to The Homestead to swim in the crater which I wasn't able to do. But I would hands down go tubing again. Having a tow rope take you back to the top with 6 different paths to go on makes it well worth it! Audrey on the Tow rope Drew on the tow rope Drew and Gavin Audrey and Kesley The Lovebirds The Fam! Drew being Drew funny shot of Drew running to the crater in his moon boots The crater Everyone except for me! You're welcome for taking your picture! It was Hot in there!

Back to Blogging

Noone reads my blog anymore. I remember the days in Dental school and everyone had a blog. Everyone blogged and everyone read everyone elses and posted fun, cute comments. You actually thought that people cared about you and the stupid crazy things your kids do. Not anymore. A little thing called Facebook. I would say 90% of the people that are on my blogging list don't blog anymore. Several of them have deleted their blogs, and I still haven't deleted them from my blog list. I think I secretly want them to start blogging again. But the truth is, Facebook is so much easier to post pics. Plus the added realization that everyone has accumulated 2-3 more kids since then, and they don't have time to blog. That would be me. But....This is a piece of history, and since I don't write in a journal, this is my journal, and someday I will turn it into one of those blog books and presto, I will have a very cool journal with pics and everything. So there! So lets back track a bit..... Since Drew's birthday falls 6 days before Christmas, we decided to have his Birthday party in January. He had an Army party this year, and everyone came in Camo. His friends were Crew Branson, Ryder, Ridge, Jacob and Owen. I found the cute idea for this party on line, but can't remember what the blog was. Sorry I can't give you the credit, but thanks for the great idea! His invite was cute. Can't find the original we made, but it was on camo paper and went something like this. Dear Private______________ Your service has been requested for a Top Secret Mission called "operation 6th Birthday". Basic training will be held at Ft. Sanders on Saturday January 28th. Please report to basic training in your fatigues at 11am. and be prepared to engage in intense combat situations against enemy forces until 1p.m. Please notify Sgt. Sanders if you will be in attendace on this mission. Sincerely, Sgt. Drew Sanders When everyone arrived, they got all geared up with army hats and face paint. Then they did some basic training which the girls helped out with. It involved jumping jacks, push-ups,a nd a lot of bouncing on the trampoline. From there, they had to open their Top Secret Mission which read: Soldiers of the Elite Team: Our nation’s security is under attack by a rebel group who is armed and very dangerous. Sources tell us that they have just uncovered the location of our President’s secret treasure and they are planning to steal it. Your mission is to get to the treasure before the enemy does and bring it safely back to Fort Sanders. You will first undergo serious training that will prepare you physically and mentally for intense combat situations. This mission is considered very dangerous and may even be deadly. Please follow all directions very carefully and hopefully all of you will make it back alive. Good luck gentlemen. After that, Owen got them going in a few missions which involved obstacle courses and such. They all had to work as a team and they all had a good time. After each mission, we drew names to see who was injured during the mission --example Your team was attacked by snipers on the rooftop across the street! 1 or 2 of you have been shot in the leg and will have to hop on one foot for the rest of the mission! -Your team was hit by a roadside bomb leaving one or 2 of you blind. You will need to cover your eyes with your headband for the rest of the mission. -Your team was ambushed and 1 or 2 of you lost an arm and will need to tuck it inside your shirt sleeve for the rest of the mission. But.....they didn't go for it. I was pretty bummed cause I thought it would be hilarious to see a couple of kids hopping around, or pretending to be blind while crossing through treacherous terrain, but these kids would not go for it, and I wasn't going to make them. After the mission, the kids had lunch, ice cream and sorbet for Drew and opened presents. Drew had a nice party and we kept it pretty low key and simple and I think that's all you really need to do with kids.

All the gear set up and waiting for the troops to show up

waiting for their drills

basic training

getting ready for their mission--war paint!

one of their missions--walking on cans

lunch and ice cream!

Big Boy

My little Miles isn't so little anymore. He wants to do everything by himself. It's takes twice as long to do anything. He isn't fun to take shopping of any kind, or out to dinner. He gets out of bed many times when we first put him to bed, and unbuckles himself in the car while we are driving. I have to stop the car, get out and rebuckle him only to find him unbuckling himself once we get going again. There are a lot of threats like, "I'm going to call the police and they're going to take you to jail!" Or "when we get home, you're going to time out!" Nothing phases him. He can be a real stinker sometimes. A cute one though. The other night he comes to me and says, "Mom, when are we having dinner?" It's just a funny phrase coming out of a 2 year olds mouth. Here he is eating his pizza--all by himself too.

Gotta love that pot belly!

Projects

Now that Christmas is over I found myself a small bit of time to do a couple of projects. Audrey still occasionally plays with dolls, so i pulled the ikea doll bed out of the garage and gave it a makeover. It was just natural wood with no bedding. I painted green and made a soft little mattress for it. Isn't it the cutest thing ever?
I then made this wreath out of plumbers tubing! Just glued the plumbers tubing together and then used a little spray adhesive to glue the moss on and WA-LA!
Now all i have to do is re-finish my dining table and 6 chairs, a bench and 2 stools. Now you know why I'm avoiding that one.

Christmas 2011

1 month late? Never too late I say. This year was the year of staying home, no company, just us. But then Owen's parents called a couple of days before Christmas and said they were coming. We were excited, because it's more fun to share the holidays with family. A couple of days before Christmas, I bought a trampoline. Owen has been protesting for years. "trampolines are so dangerous!" "One of the kids friends is going to sue us for damages!" Believe me, I've heard it all. The thing is, is that Owen doesn't have to be home with the kids ever! He works almost every Saturday leaving me with kids getting on each others nerves, spending way too much time in the house in front of the T.V., fighting and then getting on my nerves. It had to be done!!! Owen was not a happy camper when he put this together. In fact the kids tried to help, and he just got all huffy and told them to go away. But...once it was put together, I came downstairs to find a crazy, happy Owen jumping as high as he possibly could go having a glorious time! Now that we've had it for a month, I would say it was money well spent. The kids spend hours on this thing, and when their friends come over, this is where you will find them. So maybe when you go in our backyard it's kind of an eyesore, because it's like "hello 15 foot trampoline!" But we aren't going to be in this house much longer so it works for now. Even Owen's mom got into it. Here is Owen playing crack the egg with his mom and her getting some kind of injury.
Not me...Owen's mom!

For Christmas eve, we went and saw the Adventures of Tin Tin, and then came home and had Panera Bread soup and sandwiches and the kids decorated cookies for Santa.

The girls sang in several numbers in church. This year they were in one of the singing productions for the live nativity. So since most of the kids from the ward were in that singing group, they were able to sing in church. As a kid a dreaded it when Christmas was on a Sunday because we would have to go to church! I really enjoyed it this year and think there should be a Christmas service every year. It really enlightens you and helps you stay focased on the True Meaning! I felt very spiritually uplifed that day. The rest of the day was just relaxing and playing with toys. Here is Maggie playing with her Dr. and Dentist Playmobil sets. And Audrey playing with her Barbie Camper.

The Nutcracker

My friend Susan and I decided to take our kids to the Nutcracker this year. This was a first for the girls so we were excited. Of course everything in Vegas is more expensive because you have to pay that extra money to hold the event at the Paris hotel. I'll just say that it was pricey. The kids seemed like they had a fun time, but I was disappointed in the performance. The ballet company wasn't that great. They elimanated scenes like the big woman who has all her little children come out from under her dress--that is my favorite part too. And all the little performances were done by 1 or 2 dancers. ANd the swan queen was just too tall. It bothered both of us. I've seen Utah's company and it is amazing. I give this one a 3 which is unfortunate that I payed so much to go. But the girls had never seen it and so they had nothing to compare it to and we did all have a good time.

Drew is 6!

Drew is my little buddy. We are like peas and carrots. He will do anything to please me and most nights I find him asleep on the floor next to my bed. You know waht they say about boys and their mamas! He is funny, smart and loves to play anything electronic. He can figure out a new game pretty quickly. He also loves Audreys friends especially Brooke with the freckles much to Audreys dismay. He is still allergic to milk, eggs, and nuts. boo! He has a tender heart and is very close to the spirit. There is something extra special about this kid! I love him!
Having a birthday 6 days before Christmas isn't fun. I found myself stressed and going through his presents and dividing them up --some for his birthday and some for Christmas. I think I'm going to start celebrating his Birthday in the summer or at least January so he doesn't get ripped off. We had all intentions of having a friend birthday party for him, but there was too much madness! So it will be in January. We went to Chuck-E-Cheese in the morning--his favorite, not mine. We had his favorite chicken roll ups for dinner and then we went and saw Alvin and the Chipmunks--his favorite not mine. topped the night off with sorbet for dessert.

Here is Drew as the old Grandpa in his kindergarten play The Gingerbread Man. If you enlarge it, he's actually wearing specs!

All I want for Christmas is my 2 toenails

Gross I know. Owen made a funny the other day and asked me if I wanted my 2 toenails for Christmas. After I got my pedi, I saw that they were both purple. I'm thinking this is because all of the running I was doing for Ragnar. Then one day they fell off. This picture makes me realize how ugly feet really are.