Friday, December 24, 2010

Christmas Jammies 2010

One of our Christmas traditions is to get new jammies on Christmas Eve. The kids look forward to this every year. Emily picked out her own jammies while we were shopping for the kids' jammies one day. She also picked out her new bathrobe! She was still surprised when she opened them up tonight.

They also get to open the present from their sibling who drew their name. The kids had fun right away tonight. More photos to come...

Then my girls stayed up and cleaned up the kitchen and house so it would be spotless for morning. That was a great present to me!

Visions of sugerplums....


Katie and Carson have spent quite a bit of time right under the tree today. I am not sure why, but they were quiet and getting along so why not?

Wednesday, December 22, 2010

You'd better not pout...


Emily was so excited to go and see Santa at the mall a few weeks ago. We were so surprised that she was so happy to see and talk to a virtual stranger. We told her before we got there that he was a grandpa and a nice guy. She told the ladies in the store where she changed into her pretty dress that Santa was a good guy.

Monday, December 20, 2010

A Song, Santa, and Reindeer

Katie signed up at school to sing a solo at this outdoor Christmas concert at a local business park. Katie sang at the end of the schedule so there was no one there but our family to listen to her. We assured her that was the best way to do your first solo performance, not so nerve wracking! There was a Santa in one of the businesses that you could take your own photos with. Luckily Emily had a successful Santa visit at the mall a few weeks ago since she wanted NOTHING to do with this Santa. However, the "Big" kids all had to sit with Santa for a photo! We actually got to pet a real, live reindeer too! It was a cold and rainy day so to warm-up we made off quickly to see the Guardians of Ga'hoole movie at the cheap seats in Nampa.

Sunday, December 19, 2010

Katie's First Choir Concert....

Katie has sung in her school choir this year and this was her first Christmas concert in Middle School. She actually smiled at us across the gym as we were snapping hundreds of photos that evening. The kids did a nice job performing! It was fun to see her up there too.

Cabela's Fish Feeding....

During the last visit from Steve's parents we took the kids to Cabela's during the fish feeding time. It is amazing to see all of those big fish and how they race to get the food. Everyone around the store gathers around the huge aquarium windows to watch the "show".

More Zoo Boise....

More zoo pics....when you have two cameras shooting you end up with LOTS of photos.

Happy 16th Birthday Jonny....

Jonny had a friend party too, the first one ever he announced to his friends during the party.
We had a small family party too on his birthday.
I can't believe he is 16! Where does the time fly....
He hasn't really asked to drive much yet either......lucky me!

The last visit of the season

This was the last visit to the zoo for 2010.

November Birthdays...

This was the year for having friends over for a birthday party. I usually keep it to family since we have so many birthdays so very close together. In fact we have about 1 a week starting with Emily on Oct. 23 and then Jonny, Kristina, and then Katie on Nov. 24th.

With the Thanksgiving break during the week of Katie's birthday we had a combined party for Kristina and Katie and their friends. They all ate pizza and watched Toy Story 3 on the wall. All the movie candy they could eat too.
And then the requested ice cream birthday cake too!

Saturday, December 4, 2010

Let the festivities begin...

Cool boots....

Katie recently purchased these cool boots with some of her birthday money.

Thursday, December 2, 2010

Snow is......by Emily

Snow is freezing cold
Snow is ice cream
Snow is good for us
Snow makes our tummy full
She was so excited to have the kids home and to have them take her out to play in the snow too!

Sunday, November 21, 2010

Creative Spelling

Emily, holding one of Jonathan's old toys with to his name written in Sharpie on the bottom, said to Carson: "It says E-M-I-L-Y...Jonny!"

Monday, November 1, 2010

Emily's 3rd Birthday....

I can hardly believe she is three now. Time just goes by much too quickly. Emily has really caught on to the idea of birthdays and all that goes with it. She had so much opening presents and blowing out candles too. She even sang the birthday songs to herself with the rest of us. She has brought such a ray of sunshine to our family, we all just love her to pieces! She has been so much fun these last three years. She will be my only child in Primary when she moves into Sunbeams in January!

Halloween 2010

The ward has a Trunk-Or-Treat each year at the neighborhood park, just a block or two from our house. It is great to get all the stops done in one place! This year was Katie's last year as a trick-or-treater since she turns 12 in November. Our family rule is you are done trick-or-treating when you are 12. Emily, however has another 9 years of this fun stuff. I still get candy for all the big kids so no one misses out on getting some sweet treats!

Trick or Treating never smelled so good....


Tami's works for Scentsy and they moved into new offices recently so they had an Open House/Trick or Treat last Friday. We went to check out the new offices and do some trick or treating with Aunt Tami. It was fun to see all the kids dressed up and to check out where Tami works. The huge stuffed animals were fun too. There is a new product at Scentsy with stuffed animals that have Scentsy packets inside of them! Katie loved the giant sized flip flop. Emily loves to color and will sit for quite a while at the table coloring. However, she spent only a few minutes, very seriously working on her paper at the party. She wanted to go find more candy. She has caught on to the trick or treat deal. Any siblings that tried to get into her candy were put into their place!

A Scout is....

The Court of Honor held in August was payoff time for my three Boy Scouts. After Scout Camp and Saturday workshops Logan and Carson both had earned 12 or 13 merit badges a piece. Jonny earned his Life Scout Rank and is ready to move on to getting his Eagle Scout project started. Logan will be a Life Scout at the next Court of Honor and will start his Eagle project soon too.
A Scout is........very busy!

Pumpkin Patch 2010


Last week we had a great time picking out pumpkins at a nearby pumpkin patch. The kids each found something they were happy with. We all got a hayride around the farm before going home too. Steve always loves a great setting for a photo shoot too! It has been a tradition to photograph the pumpkin patch excursion each year since the big kids were quite little. We gotta keep up the tradition for little Emily too!

Tuesday, October 26, 2010

Build-A-Bear.....

I received a coupon in the mail for a free animal up to $12 or that much off of a more expensive animal. Steve and I took Emily to the mall, our only visit for the year, to choose her animal. I had showed her all the choices on the website before we went to get an idea of what she would like. She chose the Kipper look-alike dog which was great, it was $12. When we got to the store we walked her by all of the animals and said she could choose anyone of them. After seeing all of her choices she went back to the beginning of the line and chose the same Kipper dog that had seen on the website!

You can put a sound box into your animal. They range in price from $4 to $8. I said no to the sound box. Steve however said yes to the one on clearance for $1.50. Great! It's the Jonas Brothers.....Emily's favorite! (Not! She doesn't know who they are) But she has music in her dog and she will dance to it or have her dog dance to it. It really is cute! It is worth the $1.50 to watch her dance with her dog!

It is fun to watch her face as she goes through the process of picking her animal and stuffing it, washing it, and giving it a name on the computer. The most fun however is watching her carry her box. She is determined to do it herself and she carries it all the way to the car.



Monday, October 25, 2010

My 2nd 5k event....

Tami and I ran in the 5k High Speed Pursuit last Saturday. I finished and received the finishers medal. The medal is what it is all about according to my sister. My road training didn't prepare me for running on dirt roads. I ended up with shin splints about 1.5 miles into my run. I finished the race walking/running. I was disappointed not to make it running all the way again. I don't have shin splint issues when I am running at home! Emily had me up every hour from about 4am to 6am and so I was not rested as much as I should have been. I really want to make it running an entire 5k! So I now I have 3 races coming up that I want to do. I just have to decide which one!

Monday, October 18, 2010

Roar!!!!


Emily is going to be a lion for Halloween this year. The costume is on loan to us from a friend and we brought it home today. The kids put it on Emily and she couldn't have been happier. She has been crawling around the house growling for an hour now. Halloween is going to be so much fun this year.

Wednesday, October 13, 2010

"Now let's go feed the lions!"

We raced to Zoo Boise yesterday to make it in time to feed the giraffes. Emily just loved it. As we walked off she said enthusiastically, "That was fun! Now let's go feed the LIONS!"

Thursday, September 30, 2010

My first 5K - Update...

Here is the one and only photo of me at my first 5k event. It was taken by my friend 2Busy, who also ran her first 5k that day too. She did leave me in the dust....that's ok! I made it to the finish! It was good to have a friend in the crowd!
Among the crowd, awaiting our time to take off!

Tuesday, September 28, 2010

My first 5k


First of all, they spelled my name correctly! That's a first!
On this last Saturday, Sept. 25th I ran my first 5k race. I didn't really race anyone but myself even though I was surrounded by thousands of women. I had started "training" for this event back in June doing the Couch to 5K program on my iPod. I had completed all 9 weeks of that program a couple of weeks before my big day so I would just pick a distance or time for my run two to three times a week to continute to train.
The night before the race I had everything set out and ready to go. My ride shows up and I grab my pile of stuff and hop into her car. We are parking the car at the shuttle location and I notice that I left my headphones at home, nice.... And then I also realized I had left my pins home to attach my number to my shirt, again....nice going! Oh well, I was up and on my way!
We waited forever for our wave to start the race. My toes were going numb standing around waiting! Meanwhile I am hoping that I can complete this race pain free. During my last 4 or 5 weeks I have had pain in my upper thigh that gets unbearable at about 1.5 miles into my run. And my inner knee on the same leg is painful too.
I left the starting line at a good pace. It is hard to maintain your own pace when so many are running around you. I ran up the hill and made it to the top and then shin splints set in. Ugh.....all this training, all this time and NOW shin splints? What????? So this was about 1.5 miles into my first race and I was VERY discouraged! But I had to keep on going. So I would walk for a few minutes and then run for a few minutes until the shin splints took over again! I crossed the finish line only to see the clock had been stopped...I can only guess that I finished in about 45-50 min! My worst pace ever! After reviewing the hundreds and hundreds of photos taken at the finish line I never did find a photo of me crossing the finish line, wow do I feel like a loser now!
BUT, I did finish the race! I felt great the rest of the day, until the end of the day and my soar throat won the day's race and I had lost my voice completely!

I have signed up for my next 5k event in October. This time the course is flat and I will continue to train and improve!

Harvesting....

Tonight we drove to the middle of nowhere, USA and gleaned about a ton of potatoes.
The kids have been pigging out on baked potatoes tonight.
Earlier today we picked apples.
And I have grapes in the sink ready to make juice.
We will be gleaning onions this weekend. Gotta love being surrounded by farmland!

Wednesday, September 22, 2010

So funny....

Emily makes us laugh...

--"Mom, my arm hurts real bad. I need to go to the dentist"

--With her forefinger raised in the air, Emily declares "(insert sibling name here), you need to get out of the car right now!" after a rather malodorous event.


Saturday, September 18, 2010

Homemade English Muffins.....

While shopping at Winco the other day I had this crazy idea to make my own English Muffins. I have this bread book that I have had since middle school and every recipe I have ever made from it has been great! So tonight I thought I would make some for Sunday breakfast. It took just a few minutes to mix them up, shape them and put them into the warmed oven to rise. Then you cook them on an open electric skillet for about 7 min. on each side. In less than an hour you have fresh and warm English Muffins! I will never buy these from the store again. They are so easy to make and taste better, especially right off of the griddle! Yum!
Posted by Picasa

Yum!!!!

Logan was given a huge jawbreaker for his birthday. Emily found that jawbreaker and was enjoying it!
Posted by Picasa

Wednesday, September 15, 2010

The Last Splash of Summer....

Taking advantage of a warm Saturday afternoon we gathered our swimwear, smores sticks, and hotdog buns and headed to Kuna to Grandma Lockhart's house. She lives across the street from Indian Creek. The little park in her neighborhood that borders this creek has a great little swimming area that runs off to the side of this very swift flowing creek. During the summer months there are many floaters on tubes going down this creek. This is really an irrigation creek running through this natural creek bed, no cement here. When they turn off the irrigation water around the valley this creek dries up. You can walk where once it was knee or waist deep or deeper. There is a railroad tressel that crosses the creek very close to the swimming area too. Emily loving trains was enthralled as a train went by while she was on the floating mattress. It was very loud!

They are back to school too....


Jonny and Logan log-in to school each day here at home. Jonny is going to Seminary this year too. As you can see from their seating arrangements, school is quite formal! Ha....they are both enrolled with Idaho Virtual Academy. They have live classes at different times during the week and a lot of online coursework too. Logan has already completed his first four units in Math since starting class on Sept. 1st. He should finish his Algebra 1 class just after Christmas. he will also get high school credit along with his middle school credit for his Language Arts class. It is great for him to move ahead and not sit around waiting for a class to move on to the next topic! Jonny has chosen Game Design for his elective this year. He has dreams of making the next great action adventure game!



Wednesday, September 1, 2010

Back to school...

Everyone is officially back to school now! These four musketeers, Eme (borrowed child), Carson, Katie and Kristina have moved over to Sawtooth Middle School this year from our smaller charter school. They are loving the big school so far. Logan and Jonny are still doing Idaho Virtual Academy here at home and started back to school today. Jonny is a Freshman this year, Logan an 8th grader! They are all in middle school or high school this year! Wow! When Emily starts Kindergarten these older kids will all be in high school!
Posted by Picasa

ABC Excitement Club....


Emily has been wearing everyone else's backpacks the last couple of days. We go to the school when I have meetings and she wants to ride the bus home, never mind the stroller we came in! She had a plastic bag last night with her "lunch" in it. She will be so ready to go to "skwell" in just a few short years.
Meanwhile 3 other moms in our ward decided to put together a pre-preschool group, a glorified playgroup. There are 2 boys and 2 girls and they are all within about 4-6 months of the same age. It is pretty low-key academic wise, more social with some structure. Emily was so excited to get to go but all she could say while she was there was "my mom is here!" We will rotate between the family's homes so we will have "skwell" at our house at the end of the month. Emily will LOVE that!
Posted by Picasa

Tuesday, August 31, 2010

Funny feet....

I walked by the boys' room after they had gone to sleep and this is what I saw. Logan is on the top bunk of the triple-decker bunk bed. It looks like from the photo that his feet are almost on the ceiling, but they are not. The ceiling is probably another foot above his feet. I thought it was a funny way to sleep.
Posted by Picasa

Happy 13th Birthday Logan....


Happy 13th Birthday Logan!
Logan had a pre-birthday party at our friends the Moxleys. It was almost too cool to swim but the kids did it anyway. It was so windy that we couldn't light the candles, so we pretended to light them and Logan pretended to blow them out! Logan and his buddies had some great time with swords on the trampoline, swimming, and a movie too!

Wednesday, August 11, 2010

Off to Scout Camp.....and they're back!

Logan and Carson headed out to their first week-long Scout Camp.
It was an early morning rise for a summer break.
They had a great time.

Logan came home without his voice....his Scoutmaster didn't think we'd mind :)
Carson was in need of some serious chapstick therapy.

They both completed at least 12 merit badges during their week at Scout Camp! Hooray, that is 12 less I have to nag them about!