The Incentive

This picture is out of Tom's hotel window last year

My Honey is in San Diego til Friday.  He has an annual conference there.  So I'm single-moming it for a few days. 
   I was kind of lax yesterday when the kids got home from school.  They played outside until almost 6 pm.  When dinner was ready I sent the neighbor kids home and we ate.  Then I knew the hard part was about to begin.  Tom is really good at helping the kids with homework, but he wasn't home.  So getting the house picked up and homework done was going to be tricky.  
    I decided I was going to declare an incentive.  I told the kids that in 70 minutes if they had (I wrote this list on the white board so they could keep track by checking things off): cleaned their rooms, cleaned the living room, did their after dinner chore of clearing the table/dishwasher, homework worksheet, spelling, reading and got their PJs on THEN we would have a Easter egg hunt with malt ball eggs.  I reminded them only once that it was up to them.  I would not keep reminding them about what to do. By the time the timer rang each child had checked off each item.  So the night was a success. Homework was done, the house straightened up and I didn't spend an hour yelling and nagging the kids.
  While I hid the eggs in the living room I could hear the kids in the boys room laughing all together.  When I went in to get them I told them that one of the best things for a mom to hear is all of her children playing and laughing together.  It makes my heart so happy! 

More of the Good Stuff

I have pictures ~ alot are from Christmas.  I know, I know, I am really late getting these up and I have almost missed my window to post Christmas pictures.  According to me Christmas is 11 months away.  That is what I told my kids when they requested a Christmas song for their bedtime song recently.  But I'm bending my rules a little with this post.  I am including Christmas pictures.  I love Christmas and I pray to have the Christmas spirit in my heart all year long.  Our tree however has been down for weeks now and I'm really happy about that.

Just for ease I am going to write and then you are welcome to look below for the corresponding pictures.  To starts off we celebrated Tom's b-day (on the 13th) and Sadie's b-day (on the 20th). We love all the celebrating we get to do.  We went to Temple Square on the 21st and indulged ourselves at City Creek Mall.  That was my first time at City Creek.  We got to hang out with my missionary mom.  She showed us her mission headquarters.  Over the course of Christmas we had lots of family visit.  Too much fun! Ok this is getting long winded so I will put captions on the pictures.

Tom's Birthday

My baby is eating solids!!  Her big sisters are great helpers. Her big brothers are too.

Seth playing basketball in a first grade league.

Seth's cheer squad

Sadie's 3rd Birthday. 

Temple Square

My mom's mission call center.  She takes calls about family history

Our kids with Aunt Shannon and cousin Delanie

Kids with Grama

Samantha with cousin Alex

All the girls modeling clothes and scarves from Thailand, China and India.  They were gifts from my brother Marcus and his wife Chelsea who just returned from their travels to these exotic places.

Gpa and Gma Galloway

Kings of the hill

Cousin gift exchange.

The girls in their darling vests from Gma

The week after Christmas we spent sick.  This is Tom and the boys on New Years Day

Great pic

Need to Share

Happy New Year

I have so much more cuteness to share....Stay Tuned

Merry Christmas

It's beginning to look alot like Christmas.  We have been busy around here.  This pictures was taken a few weeks ago when we pulled out our decorations. 

Our Christmas homemade photo shoot.

 Today has been good.  We finally got our Christmas cards sent.  We delivered neighbor gift.  They were simple and the kids got involved with putting them together and delivering them so it was a success.  We got white paper sacks put some Clementines (mini oranges), a handful of candy, and candy canes. We punched holes in the bag tied some ribbon on each bag and  they were well received. 

Awwww so cute. 

 In case you were wondering Chuck-a-rama is not opened on Christmas Day.  Yes I was making plans to take our family to Chuck a rama for Christmas dinner, until I called them and the guy was like heck no.  What was I thinking?  

OuR Latest

Hi!  I just love pictures.  I was going through the whole year of pictures we've taken and they are so fun.  I bought a frame on Black Friday that has 11 picture slots. I was trying to decide which pictures to put in the frame.  There are too many to choose.  These are the last of November's pictures.

Here Tally is doing the 5 month old balancing trick.  Our kids are so talented (wink, wink)

Happy 7th Birthday!  Birthday cake #1

Birthday cake #2

Our 5 gems

My dear friend from childhood - Becky.  She and her family drove from Texas to visit Utah.  It was so fun catching up.

Story Time:  Tuesday before Thanksgiving we left super early for our much anticipated trip to Montana.  I was dozing off, everyone else was listening to Roscoe Riley book on CD, suddenly SLAM, bump, bump - dead deer!  We had hit a good sized buck.  Our car was smoking and dripping fluid.  Our trip was over - in the middle of no where.  We were  by Downy, Idaho.  We were able to get off the freeway to a Truck stop.  There we stayed for several hours as we coordinated how to get home.  Long story short we stayed in Logan for Thanksgiving.  The bad situation turned out to be ok.  Some very nice people towed our Suburban home for a small charge.  I'm so thankful for the protective care of angels and that we were driving a Suburban.  If we would have been in something else that buck would've been through the windshield. That is why I now drive a red Suburban.

Cousin lovin - Sadie and Paige

Love her!

Life

I just want to post something!  It is half way through November already, what just happened here??  Time is flying.  Many times I go though my day and I'll have something happen or I'll think of something very creative and think I should blog that then it goes away by the time I have a minute to post and I'm completely lost for something to blog about when I get to blog.  Get it? 

I have been sorting and de-cluttering the children's rooms. I have pulled piles of stuff out of those rooms. It feels good to have clean and tidy closets and toy bins. 

We have an action packed next couple of days.  Family pictures, more cleaning, jr basketball game, service ptojects, slc, guest from out of town, dentists appt to name a few things.  We did just celebrate Seth's 7th bday.  I need to get the pictures off of Tom's phone.  In the mean time here are two cousins who love hanging out together.  Tally is 4 months and Isaiah is 3 months in this picture.  They are darlings!

Our Costumes

It was another successful Halloween. The weather was lovely and warm for Oct 31.         Tom takes the best pictures. 

We started trick or treating at 5:30, we had plenty of sunlight.

We have a darling butterfly, 2 karate masters, an angel and a cat more like a kitten