The Latest

Hi I'm so scattered when I update this blog. I always start off with how (good) crazy things are or how late it is and I'm still up. But tonight I'm forcing myself to post some stuff. I love posting I just don't find the time too often. It takes at least 45 minutes to update so I always feel like it's such a time commitment to post something. Anyways I have lots of fun stuff to say. First I'm having another baby and it's a girl! She is due in June. Our fifth child and I'm very excited. We all are. I'm so happy to have five kids (almost). That has always been my magic number. Five is just so perfect. Most people would think four kids: 2 boys and 2 girls is perfect but I like odd numbers and I think five is perfect. I was shocked it was a girl when we had the ultrasound. I went in thinking it was going to be a boy. It turned out to be a girl. Wow. A girl feels just right, just how it should be. So I'm packing on my pregnancy weight, I'm sort of trying to be careful but I'm always hungry. My goal was to stay under 200 lbs but I don't know if that is going to happen.

I have put some pictures of our most recent activities below.
For Valentines Seth got this Gazillion bubble maker. It makes huge bubbles and it's been fun.




Trey got this Bumble Bee bubble blower. Fun but not as big of bubbles
Valentines morning. It looks like it is really early but it was only 7:30 am.
I took the kids to feed the ducks on this snowy day last week. We were very popular with the ducks they flocked around us. Seth and Trey had their new snowball throwers Seth bought. This little outing came about because we were taking lunch to Tom at Utah State University and Trey remembered that was close to the duck pond. So we drove back to pick up Seth from Kindergarten, bought some cheap bread and fed the ducks. Seth really wanted to catch a duck. He gave it a valiant effort even though I kept reminding him we don't have a place to keep a duck.
I helped Seth order caterpillars (that turn into butterflies) for his butterfly garden. Sure enough the caterpillars showed up in the mail box. They grew into these awful spikey caterpillars which finally built cocoons and hatched into butterflies. Here is one on his finger.
Shannon and Natalie (my sis and her daughter) drove down from Seattle to deliver Shannon's cats to my dad's house here. It was so fun having them here for a few days. Shannon just graduated from the University of Washington with dual Masters in Public Affairs and Public Administration (I made those up but it's something like that and very impressive)
I got to escort Seth to mom/sons Western Night at the elementary school. We square danced and did a little 'wiggle to the middle' (See my belly, it's bigger now)
Tom and Samantha square danced the night before us. Samantha loves, loves, loves it. We have been counting down to this night for weeks.
Super cute
2012 mean lots of special baptisms. Reese is the first. It was so nice to spend the weekend with Reese and his family for his b-day and baptism.

For about a week straight our kids got into this cup stacking craze. We would time them. They got really good and could stack in 8 secs or so. They were so into it. They loved being timed. Thanks to Yo Gabba Gabba for this.
Samantha's class had a Tall Tales competition. Here are the girls so nicely dressed
These two are cousins just 6 months apart. Look at the height difference. They area cute pair.




I figured it out. I love blogs because it is a very convenient way to peek into someones life and see how they are doing at my leisure. That is why I love blogs. When I have a free minute I can sit down and get a little update of some of my favorite people. So that was a glimpse into our life right now.

A New Post

Blogging world I'm still here. I'm kind of bummed because it seems that close friends that used to update their blogs every-so-often, don't anymore. I can't complain because I'm not good at it either. It's hit and miss. I'll stay in touch!

Our Festivities

I really shouldn't do this to you....30 of my favorite pictures from December here before your eyes. The ideal thing would be to post five pictures at a time but I'm really bad at staying on top of things nowadays. I must say I love pictures and never regret taking a picture of everything. I get that trait from my mom. So as you can see we had a wonderful December and a Merry Christmas. I still haven't taken down our Christmas decorations. That is on the list for the MLK holiday weekend. Thank you to all. WE loved hearing from many of you. Thank you for sending us cheery cards in the mail, one of my favorite things and I almost didn't get my cards out but I did. Here's to a wonderful 2012!

It all began at the beginning part of December when we decorated the Christmas tree

Samantha learned how to tie quilts at school and came home and taught me. She is one sharp cookie. We tied this mini quilt for Sadie using our homemade quilt frame (bar stools and books)

We partied hard for Tom's 36th birthday

Sadie the shirtless wonder

Sadie's first encounter with Santa

We found Santa at Trolly Square in salt Lake

Our annual trip to temple square. So fun and so cold

Taking a breather

Sadie's 2nd birthday

Her main man, after Daddy, Elmo

Cousin Bey Blade battle. Totally fun to hear the laughter of fun coming from the boys

One of our special treats, Cousins from Pennsylvania. My brother and his family visited for 3 days

My lovely mom from Seattle visited for several days. She is so beautiful and we enjoyed having her here.

My mom and Sadie. My mom calls this particular scarf her broccoli scarf

Now on to Montana!

Tell me this isn't the most beautiful lodge-like home and the picture perfect place to spend Christmas

Christmas Eve dinner

Acting out the nativity

Christmas Morning

Matching cousin pajamas

Grandpa and Grama made these darling rocking horses for the three youngest girls

Samantha got a face painting kit for Christmas and was busy, busy painting away.

bowling after Christmas

Our New years eve party

We finally got some snow and the girls were off to play

Cheers! Happy New Year

Thanksgiving

This Thanksgiving was absolutely grand. Having two siblings come from across the country (Delaware and Indiana) definitely set the stage for an extra special occasion. In preparation for the holiday Tom and I did an obnoxious amount of cleaning and rearranging in order to maximize the space of our home and to make it comfortable and nice. Our cleaning list: sort and dejunk the kids' room, (we took 7 boxes of toys to the storage unit), move Samantha's bed to boys room, move a queen bed in to Samantha's room, clear out the formal dinning room, set up the adult table for Thanksgiving, wash bedding, clean bathrooms, dust fans in living room (hasn't been done since the house was built. the ceilings are like 18 feet high), vacuum, new scentcy stuff, develop new family pix, hang them (didn't happen), shop for every type of food a person could possibly want, get more dishes from storage, laundry, put away the 72 hour kit stuff I've had by my bed for over a month, and mop floor. As you can tell I was exhausted before our company even showed up. Everyone arrived and it was well worth the preparation.

Here I am with siblings: Sariah, Starla and Marcus. Can you see why when I was 7 years old I thought I was adopted. I don't have red hair. Love these guys! Missed the other 3 that couldn't make it and my mom.

This was the first Thanksgiving I've ever hosted. Team work made the dinner perfect. My sis-in-law Chelsea also helped and her sis Lindsay. We had smoked Turkey. It was already cooked just needed to reheat it. Loved the turkey, so did everyone else.

Football ruled the living room

The kids coming to the adult table to be dished up

Marcus and Chelsea - cutest couple

Lindsay, Chelsea, Marcus and Starla

Dad, Sariah and Neum

The dinner: Smoked turkey, mashed potatoes/gravy, sweet potatoes, marshmallow salad, veggies and dip, pickled veggies, olives, bacon wrapped green beans, green bean casserole, stuffing and rolls and cranberry jelly. It was the perfect dinner

Later the kids made gingerbread houses. Such a hit!

Samantha has lost two more teeth and one more is about to fall out.

Saturday we had our longtime friends Janet and Mitch from San Francisco visit. So fun to see them. love them! See if you can spot them in the crowd

The exhausted hosts.

It was so fun! We played lots of games, mostly card games. Black Friday was a bust for me. Didn't see anything in the ads worth getting up for. I ate for 3 days straight. I am a compulsive eater when there is that much around. Plus I was so tired I ate to stay awake. Happy. Healthy. Tom went to the USU football game on Saturday. All the girls hit the beauty school for cheap haircuts, eye brow waxing and tinting. Then more games.

Then to top it off Sunday we went to a missionary farewell in our old ward for a young man that Tom helped mentor as a YMs leader. It was so nice to see the old gang. It felt like home. Everyone was so kind and loving to us. Thanks Barlows!

It was a weekend to remember.