24th of July!!

Happy Pioneer Day!! What a fun weekend we have had. Friday morning we had a kids fun run in the neighborhood. My friend Julie had organized the whole thing and had it seperated by ages and they all had different distances. Bella took 3rd place, Porter took 1st wahoo!! and Ethan was doing alright but stopped to pee and then pick some flowers. At first we thought Ethan was trying to cheat and cut through the fields, so luckily he's not a cheater but will probably get busted for public urination later in life. After all the runners they had a bike race. Bella learned to ride a bike the day before but doesn't have a bike yet so she was bummed to not be apart of the ride. The boys got to ride and had fun.



Right after the race we headed camping down to Fairview with my family. We had so much fun. We weren't sure what to do with Tess, so we decided to set up a truck tent right next to our tent so we could put her to bed when she needed to and then when we went to bed we wouldn't wake her. Great in theory, but the little stinker ended up screaming most of the night. We brought her in with us but she has never slept with us, she really hates it. I'm not a great night time mom and I get so tired I can't function, Johnny kept saying lets put her in the truck in her carseat and she'll go right to sleep. I kept saying no, that's too mean. Finally at about 6:30-7:00am Johnny just does it and she instantly fell asleep. I've been informed I'm not allowed to make any decisions while I'm tired.

We had four wheelers down there and just got to sit around and relax. We even got to go swimming in the leech infested waters. After about the 8th leech we decided to go back to camp. Johnny and I headed home Saturday night and tried as best as we could to get all the dirt off the kids before bed.

9 years!!

I can't believe it has already been 9 years!! What an adventure it has been, thank you Johnny for always being there for me and for our 5 five great kids, I love you!!

Clowns

Ethan really loves clowns and making people laugh, so last week at the library we got a book on how to be a clown and it had fun suggestions of how to paint your face. We had a ton of fun, and then it got a little out of control and neighbors got painted and unfortunately kittens.

Why I Love Homeschool

This is how Porter did his math today, it must have worked because he got 100%.

I'm such a sucker

Last week my neighbor got two kittens, then my sister got two kittens, so of course we HAD to get two kittens. Ethan named his Cheepy and Porter named his Snowflake. The boys have been pretty responsible in taking care of them and making sure they have enough food and water. The kittens have so far survived jumping off our deck and the dog carrying it around, but can they survive the kids...??

Strawberry Days!

Oh how I LOVE Strawberry Days! We had such a blast this year. We had hoped to start with the carnival on Wednesday but we didn't realize that it didn't start until 6pm that night, the kids were bummed but they got over it. That night we headed to the rodeo. Bella did the Mutton Bustin this year. She was all excited until she found out the sheep run. She was thrown on a sheep and was shoved out the gate and immediately ate dirt. She was very mad about it for a few days but now she loves to tell everyone she rode a sheep. Some of her cousins rode too.
Here is Hadlee and Bella.

All the cousins that rode.

I just love the look of pure terror on her face in this one.

Then on Friday we went to Huck Finn Days. We had one sister for each line so the kids could hop from line to line.
There was a fish pond.

Face painting.

Horse rides.

Then Saturday morning was the Grand Parade. It rained but we were prepared, so it wasn't too bad.

Fun Pic

I finally just organized all my old photos and ran across one of my favorites of Porter. This is at our old house when he was 3.

Compliment??

So I'm trying to decide if this is a compliment or not. "You look really good...for having five kids" Isn't that like saying "You don't sweat much for a fat girl" I'm not quite sure how I feel about this.

Trying to help??

I love to be out working in the yard. The only problem is that I usually do more bad than good. Last year I broke the lawn mower blade, got the lawn mower stuck in mud, and the list goes on and on. Well last night I was trying to be helpful again; we have a little trailer out on the road and I wanted to move it, so pretending like I have any muscles at all I was lugging it down the road. There was a basketball under the trailer and it got stuck. So what do I do, what else, pull harder. As I did that the trailer shot out and knocked me over and the tongue came down on my foot. Thankfully there were three little neighbor girls watching me or the whole neighborhood would have learned some colorful new words. I sent them off so I could lie in the road and cry. Then I hobbled inside and called Johnny to get home quick. My mom came over (thanks!) to be with the kids so Johnny could take me to the ER. I had to get 4 stitches and have some tissue damage on my foot. I go to the Dr.'s today to see what needs to be done. I'm doing alright and I'm very glad my honey can stay home to help me, thanks baby!



Just for the record I do not normally have sausage toes. Mine are generally very attractive. :)

How to...

...tell your 2 year old needs a nap.

Cinco De Mayo

My sister Tiffany is moving to DC this week and we wanted to have a party for her and lucky for us the party happened to land on Cinco de Mayo. It was a lot of fun, complete with Mexican costumes and Mexican food. We had a pinata and then watched Nacho Libre. We even gave Tiffany some WAY awesome going away gifts, we love you guys and we'll miss you!!


Me and my girls.

Bella trying to break open the pinata.

Getting ready for the movie.

Bike Ride

What a great day!! My brother is in town from DC, so we decided to do a bike ride up Provo Canyon to Vivian Park. I really wanted my kids to go, but didn't know how I would pull 5 kids behind me, so I got Porter and Ethan ride a bike yesterday. I made them practice all night so they could make the trip today. I'm feeling kind of mean now that I had them bike the trail, it is about 10-12 miles round trip. Porter did really good and took off. Poor Ethan was really struggling but he made it. We were one seat short for Bella, so we had three kids in one of the bike trailers. My sweet Johnny kept Joshua and Tess so I wouldn't have to take them. The boys are really excited to now go biking all the time. Now if we can get Bella to ride a bike then we can go on family bike rides again!!

Bella, Maddie & Megan at the park.


Porter's stupid human trick. You've got to love little boys!!


Three's a crowd.


My boys, Sam, Kate & Jack before we took off.

Shim...?

I've had my fair share of inappropriate comments from my children. "When is your baby coming out of your tummy?" to the heavy lady, and so on. Well yesterday at Wal-Mart Ethan out did himself. I had a "homely" lady checking us out and Ethan walked up to her and said, "Hey, when I first saw you I thought you were a man." I couldn't even look at her after. After Ethan and I had a talk about saying rude things he told me, "Well, she did." I had to laugh later because she really did look like a man.

OH Bella...

Bella and I have a lot of talks about choices and modesty. The other day she informed me that she can't wait to grow up and be a mom so she can make her own choices and wear immodest clothes. This sweet girl is only 4.

Slacker

I have been seriously slacking on my blogging updates and I'm sure you're all very curious what we've been up to. So here you go...

Ethan has been having some major asthma issues so I headed down to St. George for a week so he could clear up, and my friend Ashley came along. We had fun and enjoyed the warm weather. I wanted to cry when I was driving home and could see the snow again.



Then we found out that our rental home flooded and destroyed all three floors. That wasn't so much fun.



The boys have been playing Jr. Jazz. Porter gets really into the game and Ethan not so much, but he does a really good job on defense.

Race Pic

OK so obviously I stole this picture from the race, but I thought it was pretty cute.

Painters Half Marathon

Johnny and I headed down to St. George on Friday for my half marathon. We got down there and it was 60 degrees, it was so nice. We picked up my race packet and just got to hang out with no kids. That night we went to dinner with our friends. The race started Sat. morning at 9am it was sooo cold! Aubrey and I ran together and Aubrey's sister Julie, ran with her step daughter. We were doing really good, but finally got really tired around mile 10. Aubrey and I split apart at mile 11 she finished about 5 minutes before me. Here is a photo of us at the end.



After that I went back to the condo and slept until about 2pm. We got ready and went out to dinner with our friends, then headed home. It was a lot of fun and it was really nice to be out without our kids.

How to entertain your two year old

Joshua learned how to open doors last week, and it has been eventful. During school last week he and Bella were downstairs being so cute. I could hear them giggling and playing together. Little did I know it was because Joshua had opened up the pantry and dumped out most of the Costco size formula all over the floor. Isn't he cute...?

Merry Christmas

On Christmas Eve we headed over to my dad's for some snacks. The kids got to watch a movie and we got to stuff our face.

Our kids get to open one present that night and then we read the Christmas story.


We had a great time opening presents that morning and then my family came over to our house for brunch.

Then we headed over to the Thomases for a late lunch and open presents there. We had a great couple of days!

November

Well since I never blogged anything in November, here is a recap of what we did. And sorry, I have no pictures thanks to Joshua and Ranch Dressing. We've homeschooled now for two months, and I still really like it. It's nice to go at our own pace especially mornings. I love not being in a rush to get everybody ready and out the door. The kids are doing really good and really like being with me everyday. Johnny teaches them on Thursdays for a couple of hours at his office. That is their favorite day because they always get donuts after.

Bella had her dance recital the Monday before Thanksgiving. She was soooo cute!! Her cousin Kate is in dance with her but got too scared and didn't do the dance, but she looked super cute too.

For Thanksgiving we went to Thomas's. As always thet had a lot of good food. We played Hearts after dinner and I got the stinking queen of spades almost every round until I lost and the game was over. We just took it easy the rest of the weekend and got our Christmas decorations up.

We did go to a couple of Jazz games; before one of the games we ate at Happy Sumo and they had a really yummy salad after we ate it we asked what was in it. It was fried squid legs, I was glad we waited until after we ate it to find out what it was.

That's about it, I know my life sounds way exciting, so don't be jealous :)

Our Week

I found Johnny with another girl, in the shower!!




We carved our pumpkins.




If you're going to have an asthma attack why not do it in style?



Then finally Halloween!!