The Ward Newsletter

Spring Happenings

2011-07-17T17:48:00.000-07:00

Here's a few pics of things we did during the Spring. Not too much exciting to write about so I'll just let the pictures tell the story!

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Maci's Baptism

2011-07-17T17:19:00.000-07:00

We traveled to Utah for Maci's baptism! We left on a Thurs. night and drove to Omaha, saw some friends there for a couple hours, then drove on to North Platte. We stayed the night there, and traveled the rest of the way on Friday. Delaney was amazingly good in the car, I was pretty worried about her. We put a Veggie Tales video on the ipad and put it on the seat behind her so she could watch it and she really liked that!

We played with cousins and Grandma and Grandpa Ward for a couple days and then had Maci's baptism on the 15th. It was kind of a crazy day, making food and making sure everything was ready. Right before I left for the church I got a call that my nephew Brendon had been hurt running track at school, and Don and Amy happened to be in Hawaii visiting my parents! So they had our number as a contact (well, Mom's number and I just happened to answer). So I called Katie and she went to handle that, but that left me without a piano player! I wasn't sure she was going to make it, they had to take Brendon to the emergency room to have his hip looked at. So I was kind of panicked about that, and was just flustered and didn't get some of the pictures I was hoping to, with both Ward grandparents and Maci and Chris in their white clothes, and all the beautiful food! but hey, the important stuff got done, right?!

Anyway, even though it didn't go according to exact plan, it was still a beautiful ordinance and Maci looked so happy and peaceful. Eckersley's were even able to come, and Grandma Great. It was so fun to see all those who we love most. It was a little hard not to have my parents there, but we knew they were where they were supposed to be, serving the people of Hawaii! Anne gave a wonderful talk on Baptism. She had lots of different tools in an old tool box of my dad's, and had each one represent something that Baptism helps us with in the future. I should have written them all down, it was so good. Grandma Sharon gave a great talk on the Holy Ghost and was so sweet. She loves Maci so much! It was a beautiful day and Maci just glowed.

We had a great gathering afterwards with food and friends. We chatted for a while, and then started cleaning up. Then. . . the fire alarm went off! The bishop of the building had already left, so we weren't sure what to do. Sharon tried calling him but he didn't answer. Then the sirens came! full fire department response. It was kinda crazy! We tracked down the culprit, JT! He said he just wanted to see what it would do. Curiosity got the better of him! But after a short explanation all was solved. It was a good learning lesson for all the young kids, not to pull the fire alarm! Thank goodness the water alarm didn't go off and soak the church! It was a funny end to a great day.

We love Maci so much and are so glad we could travel to Utah for her baptism so that all our friends and family could be there. Here's a few photos that we managed to snap between the chaos!

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February 2011

2011-04-03T07:18:00.000-07:00

A little behind, but here's to catching up! Feb. was a fun month, filled with love, and somebody's 8th birthday!! Maci really wanted to go ice skating for her birthday. We've never been ice skating with the kids before, but Maci is an expert roller skater, so we thought this would be right up her alley. Her friend Lilly's birthday was a couple weeks before hers, and they had to postpone her friend party for a couple weeks, so we decided to team up and do the party together! Since they'd be inviting most of the same friends anyway, this worked out perfectly. We had pizza and drinks, and then cupcakes with some cute cake toppers I made for the special occasion. The kids had a great time, Gavin even rocked the ice and was cruising around the rink. It was a great day.

On Sunday we had Maci's favorite meal, Ravioli. Easy peasy for mommy! Here's a few things we love about Maci.

She is always willing (well almost always) to play with her little brother and sister. Gavin and Maci play pretend a lot out in the yard, puppies, dragons, etc. Gavin really loves his big sister.
She makes friends very easily with her fun and kind personality
She is an excellent student. She reads very well, at about a 4th grade level, and continues to excel in other areas as well.
She is growing in the gospel. She was so excited to get baptized, and never complains about going to church. She loves her teacher so much! and was pretty upset that our family was split into another ward, without Sister Jarvis! but I'm sure her new teacher will be equally inspiring.
She has a very unique creative sense of style. She is a girly girl through and through, but not in the usual way. She likes to put different things together and look funky and cute in her own way.
She loves doing her own hair (this is great for me as I usually forget to do it for her!)
She has been a huge help with Delaney. She's always willing to hold her or run get me something I need for her. Laney loves her big sister!
Maci is always in the mood to do something crafty. She is very creative and loves to make a crafty mess with me!
She enjoys playing spring soccer with the city league, and just started playing the piano this year!
She's kind of a perfectionist, which as most parents of perfectionists know, this is both a blessing and a curse! She's always trying to do her best, but sometimes when she doesn't think it's her best, or she doesn't get something the first time, she gets very upset!
She loves her cousins and grandparents in Utah so much, she says at least once a week how much she can't wait to move closer to Utah so she can see them more.

We love our 8 yr old! I can't believe how big she's getting and how grown up she's getting. I wish I could freeze time and just keep all my kids exactly the age they are right now, we're all having so much fun! But we're excited for things to come. Gavin will be in Kindergarten next year! and Delaney is growing like a weed. She's such a sweet addition to our little family.

We also had a BIG snowstorm here in Feb., well big for Missouri standards. School was out for 3-4 days, can't remember exactly. We got about 8 inches in one day, which is unheard of here. Then the temperatures dropped to below 0, and that always keeps school out as well. We had a fun week of sledding (dropped 20$ for literally the only sled left in town, I called about 5 places to find it!), building snowmen, drinking hot chocolate (thanks Sharon!) and playing the wii. It was a fun week.

Check March's post for details on Maci's baptism!

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January 2011

2011-02-01T17:57:00.000-08:00

So my new goal is to write once a month, a recap of sorts of the month. I think I can keep up with that! So, starting the year off right, here's what we were up to in January!!

We had Todd and Grandpa Ward visit at the beginning of the year. We had a great time, visiting Branson, eating good food, celebrating Don's Birthday and New Years Eve, making Thai food, etc. etc. We were so glad they could come and Grandpa could meet Delaney!

Maci had a fun month at school as always. They did a 2nd grade music festival called Winter Jam, it was a great show! Maci had a few speaking parts and did a great job. Their music teacher at school, Mrs. Sorenson, is great with the kids. Maci was the only one who didn't get sick this month, but her streak came to a halt this week when she was diagnosed with bronchitis/close to pneumonia. So she's on an antibiotic now and hopefully it'll be gone in the next couple days! Last year she had a horrible bought of pneumonia that lasted about a month on and off, so hopefully that won't happen again this year! Maci also started piano lessons from our friend Karmen. She's doing a great job and loving practicing and learning how to play.

Gavin is my little buddy as always. I'm really starting to realize how much I'm going to miss him next year when he goes to Kindergarten! He is ALWAYS willing to help me with Delaney if I'm doing something and she starts crying, he's there in an instance trying to make her smile or putting her binki in for me. Gavin is still doing great in preschool, and loves to go with his little buddy Jason. It's been a great help to me that Jason's Mom, Mishelle, swaps driving with me on and off, the school is a ways away and it's nice to only make 2-3 trips a week instead of 6! Gavin is always making me laugh with funny dances he does or funny things he says. He and Maci had a great time tackling and wrestling Uncle Todd. Gavin had a bad bought of Sinus/Strep, we're still not sure what it was. He had a strep test but it was negative, but 5 days later he still had a fever and was pretty sick for too long, so brought him in again and she finally gave us an antibiotic. It's no fun to have sick kids and see them suffer! But he's doing better now and back to his usual self.

Delaney is growing like a weed! She weighs approx. 14lbs now at around her 4 mo mark. Her official checkup is in a couple weeks. She's smiling all the time and kind of chuckles but we can't seem to be funny enough to get her to laugh full on. Believe me, we're trying all our best jokes here! But I'm sure she'll get around to it when she's ready! She coos and googles lots though and will talk back to you when you make sounds to her. She loves baths and loves to be naked! If she's really upset if we undo her buttons and rub her bare legs she usually calms down. She's still not sleeping great, and had a double viral ear infection as well as a bacterial ear infection, so she was on antibiotics as well. She's finally feeling better, but we still can't get her to sleep through the night, or even more than 3-4 hrs. We'll get there someday hopefully! Overall though she's a happy healthy baby and we love her to pieces. My favorite time with her is right after I feed her and she's happy and awake and will talk to me for as long as I'm willing to listen.

Chris officially finished all his writing on his thesis! Now he still has a few revisions, etc, but the bulk of it is done. His schedule is opening up a little and we're seeing a little more of him, but he's still really busy at the clinic, which is good because he's getting all his hours he needs to graduate and get an amazing internship site! It's crazy to think that a year from now Chris will be interviewing at internship sites and we'll be on our way to our new adventure! We know that time will fly and are trying to make the most of our time left here.

I've been busy with kids, wood orders, etc. I'm cutting back on the orders, but it's really hard to slow down even though I know I need to. I'm only leaving the shop up 1-2 days a week and and still getting plenty of orders, which I'm really grateful for. It is nice to have less to do in that regard though, these babies won't be little forever and that's more important! We'd planned a trip to Omaha to see our friends the Dunakey's, but that weekend I got strep and Gavin was sick, and the Dunakey's had a stomach flu, so we had to cancel the trip. We rescheduled for 2 weeks later but Angelita's baby, due the 12th, thought she might go into labor, since she was having pretty regular contractions and dialated to a 4 already! So, we opted not to go and went to St. Louis instead. Of course she didn't have the baby! but we hope to visit them soon and get to meet baby Eva. We had a great time in St. Louis and spent lots of quality time in. Delaney did pretty well in the car and slept pretty well in the hotel. We did the Zoo, Art Museum, Magic House, drove by the Arch, and even went to Crown Candy Kitchen, of Man vs Food fame. We had a great time and enjoyed being "away".

We ended out the month with a major winter storm, blizzard even! We've gotten about 8" today, and that is A LOT of snow for Missouri. We had about 1/4" of ice before that, so the roads are pretty bad. We haven't ventured out yet, everything was canceled today and tomorrow, so we probably will just stay in all day tomorrow too. Luckily we haven't lost power or anything, and were prepared with plenty of bread, milk, and Mt. Dew! I wouldn't be surprised if we had school canceled for the rest of the week, that would be 4 days of missed school this week. We cleaned out our closet today, I've been on a major de-cluttering kick since reading a book by Peter Walsh of Clean House. We've gotten rid of a lot of stuff! and it feels good to rid ourselves of STUFF we don't NEED!!!

Well, I wrote more than I planned, but this is my journal! Just skip to the pictures in the Smilebox if you want to cut to the chase :-D
Happy February to all! see ya next month.

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Christmas 2010

2010-12-27T20:02:00.000-08:00

We had a fabulous month of December. We decorated the tree even before Thanksgiving! We were all anxious to get into the Christmas Spirit. We did lots of fun things this month including making gingerbread houses, decorating the tree, going to our Stake Nativity two times, driving around to look at lights, lots of outings to the mall and such, my birthday on the 19th, and of course the crowning glory of Christmas morning! We did our own little Nativity on Christmas Eve which was really fun. We also watched Luke 2 and I think the kids really did understand what Christmas is really about. We talked about it a lot all month, but emphasized it before all the present sharing started.

We tried to keep the presents to a minimum, and did a pretty good job but as always we could have done better! Somehow it never looks like enough, which is Satan I'm sure trying to worm his way into Christ's holiday! But the kids were ecstatic with what they got and Chris and I were pretty blessed as well. The favorites were Pillow Pets, Legos, new Robes to snuggle in, and plenty of gum!! Chris got me a really cute coat, that I may or may not have picked out on a shopping trip prior, and lots of cute accesories, a new hat to wear on bad hair days, and a new cd. I got him a cool pair of dress shoes, cds, a new dress sweater and shirt (he dresses up pretty much every day for the clinic), and some shirts with his Motorcycle Trip decal transferred onto them with T-shirt vinyl I cut with my machine. That was my "surprise" gift to him, everything else was pretty main stream and boring! He was really happy with that gift and I felt best about it because it was the most thoughtful. Isn't that what Christmas gifts are all about?!

We chatted with family on all sides during the day, ate a wonderful Turkey dinner, and then went and saw the new Tron. It was a good flick, can't beat a movie on Christmas day! We got home plenty tuckered out and all crashed. Chris is home for a whole week with no clinic!! but will be working on his thesis here and there, but I'm so glad to have him home in the evenings for a week. Chris's dad and brother are coming to visit on Thurs. night for a couple days so that will be something to look forward to as well. I'm feeling the "After Christmas Blues" and hope the next couple months of cold will go quickly.

We do feel so blessed as a family for everything we have and all our wonderful friends and family. Heavenly Father has poured out his spirit on us this year with too many blessings to count, and we hope we can always remember him and give thanks throughout the year, not just at Christmastime. Merry Christmas, and a Happy New Year!

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November 2010

2010-12-27T19:33:00.000-08:00

November was kind of a blur to be honest! Getting in a routine with Delaney has been harder than with the other kids, just too many other schedules to deal with. She's not sleeping through the night at all, still wakes up every 3-4 hours, and has lots of gas we can't seem to remedy. But generally she's still a very happy baby and we love her to pieces!

Chris's mom and Todd came for a visit! They brought all the kids' Christmas presents and we had an early Christmas celebration. We went and stayed in a condo down in Branson for a couple of days. It was really fun! We went to Ripley's Believe it or Not, and walked around Branson seeing the sites. It was great having them and for them to meet Delaney.

We blessed Delaney the Sunday Chris's family was here. It happened to be our stake conference so we did the blessing at our home. Chris's friends from school, Mike, Tessa, Kylie, and Kylie's husband Robbie were able to come as well. We were so grateful for their support! It was a special night for us and our little sweetheart. Chris gave a beautiful blessing, one she'll be blessed with her entire life. I'm so thankful for the priesthood Chris holds in our home worthily!

We stayed home for Thanksgiving this year and just did our own dinner. Chris baked the turkey and it was delicious!! He's a chef deep down. We went and saw Tangled afterwards, it was a great and fun movie. We missed all our family in UT and abroad, but it's always kind of nice to have a low key holiday as well. Here's some pics from our month.

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Ward Family Halloween 2010

2010-12-27T19:28:00.000-08:00

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We had a wonderful Halloween this year with lots of fun activities. Thanks to the Chapmans for inviting us over for Halloween Eve, as Halloween was on Sunday this year. We had a great time at their wonderful party! We didn't go trick or treating so we could focus on the Sabbath that day, but did have a great Trunk or Treat at church the Thursday before. Our little genie and Raphael TMNT had a great time, and we had a lot less candy to deal with! Happy Halloween!

Gavin turns 5!

2010-12-27T18:11:00.000-08:00

So I'm WAAAY behind in the blogging biz, but since this is a journal for me I feel I need to catch up, for posterity's sake of course. So here goes. Before all the baby craziness, Gavin had a monumentous 5th birthday! We had a big friend party last year so we kept it low key this year. We told him we could go do something fun and he could invite one friend. He decided he wanted to go Mini Golfing, and invited his best bud Jason Martin. Branson has a lot of cool Mini Golfing places. He chose the Dinosaur themed one, and we went on the Fri. before his Bday. It was lots of fun, and we only lost a couple balls :-D

Gavin had just started preschool the week before, and his birthday landed on a preschool day. He got to take cupcakes to school that day for their snack. He requested ham potato skillet for dinner and a Batman cake. We had a great family dinner and loved devouring the Batman sign.

Gavin just makes me smile. He has the funnest, goofiest at times, personality. He LOVES to dance and shake his booty, every time he hears any kind of song with a beat he is up out of his chair or off the floor and just starts to boogie! He does a MEAN robot. It's so cute and awesome, he can hardly contain himself. He loves to rhyme, and sometimes will just start saying words with a string of rhymes after a word, even if they aren't actual words. He LOVES his baby sister. He kisses her every chance he gets and will continue to kiss her soft cheeks until mom calls it quits on him! He has a very sweet and loving personality and loves to snuggle in the evenings. He loves playing with Maci and they come up with crazy and interesting games to play together, until it all falls apart as it often does with siblings. But for the most part they get along really well. We recently moved them into separate rooms and they've really missed being together in the same room! Gav loves to play the Wii and especially the Playstation with Daddy when he's home and able to relax, which believe me, is kind of a rare occasion! He loves to ride his bike, and to play with his buddies Jason and Hunter. He loves all thing Super Hero and has recently gotten into Star Wars. Overall, Gavin is just a joy to be around and I love him so much! I'm really going to miss him next year when he goes off to all day Kindergarten!

Happy Birthday Big Man! We Love You!

Baby Delaney

2010-09-25T16:23:00.000-07:00

2010-09-25T16:10:00.001-07:00

More Pics! Kiddies came by today and showed some love to baby sister. They love her!

She's here!!

2010-09-25T09:15:00.000-07:00

Baby Delaney Elizabeth, or Elizabeth Delaney, we can't make up our mind, made her early arrival on Sept. 24th at 12:21 pm. She weighed 6 lbs 2 oz and was 19 in. long. Here's how it all went down. {this is lengthy and detailed for my benefit so be prepared!}

I went in for my weekly checkup on Monday the 20th. My BP was pretty high, but baby still looked good on my 30 minute monitoring so they said to keep an eye on it and if I felt any symptoms, bad headache, nausea, disorientation, etc to give them a call ASAP. The Dr. had talked about taking me to the hospital that day to induce possibly, but I was NOT keen on that idea, 35 weeks sounded awfully early even though he thought it would be fine. And frankly I just wasn't ready to have this baby yet! So home I went on semi-bed rest, trying to take it as easy as possible.

Well, for me that was very hard! I had a lot to do to try and get DONE with all my work so I could take time off, I finally turned my Etsy shop off but had a few things I had to finish up. I actually cancelled quite a few sales due to the bed rest, people were so nice and friendly about it, saying to take care of myself and they'd keep me in their prayers. Etsy is an awesome community! Anyway, I probably wasn't as good as I should have been about taking it easy. On Wed. I borrowed a friend's BP cuff so I could take my pressure at home, and it was NOT GOOD, varying from 160/90s up to as high as 190/117. And even if I laid down for hours it still was high, too high. I probably should have gone in that night, but being the stubborn person I am I thought I could wait it out and didn't want to get admitted into the ER in the middle of the night. Anyway, we waited till morning and called my OB ASAP. The nurse said to go straight to the OB Triage center at the hospital, to have Chris drive, that I should not do ANYTHING strenuous. I should have known better, I really could have had a stroke or seizure with how high my numbers were.

So we sat and waited for about an hour before getting into the Triage center, then was put on a monitor for about 3 hrs. It was of course crazy busy that day in the Labor and Delivery so I think we probably stayed longer than we needed to, but oh well. Numbers were still high and blood work showed higher liver enzymes which is a sign of pre-eclampsia. So. . . they said we'd be doing a 24 hr urine watch in the hospital over night. Moved to Labor and Delivery, sat, waited, waited some more. . . started the urine watch. Chris went to go pick up the kids from their various locations and while he was gone, my lovely nurse, Diane, who I adored, said she thought they'd probably just induce me later that night when my Dr. arrived. He happened to be the Dr. on call that night, which worked great! She'd talked with the other dr. on call at the time and thought that was probably what they'd do. SO, call Chris, tell him to get the kids situated again! they were already on their way to see me so we chatted for a little while and then he was off again. Thank you to the Martin's for keeping them over night and getting the kids to their schools! It's so great to have such wonderful friends that you can count on when no family is close. Our ward is our family here! They are all terrific.

Dr. Smith-O'brien arrived around 7pm and confirmed that they would be inducing me that night. He thought there was little chance that my BP would go down in coming weeks and that the baby was far enough along that she should do fine if induced early. He also said that babies who have been under BP stress, tend to develop a little earlier due to the stress of it, and she's a girl {girls develop about a week faster than boys, even in the womb they're ahead of the curve!}. So, feeling good about it, we went ahead with the induction. We moved rooms, waited, waited a little more, and finally got the pitocin going around 9pm.

Contractions started and got pretty regular, but not very strong. I was about a 2 coming into Labor, and didn't progress much beyond that until morning. I finally got to a 3-4 around 5:30 in the morning. It was a very long night, my BP was better on my side but the contractions weren't as strong while on my side, keeping the baby monitor going the whole night, finding her if she moved around, not being able to move around much due to the IV and monitors. . . long night!! and poor Chris was on a reclining rocker that looked as comfortable as a pile of rocks! But we knew the end was in sight.

They broke my water at 5:30am and I'd hoped that that would get things moving. It did, and I was soon having pretty hard contractions. I still hadn't had an epidural yet, I was pretty grumpy by the time they got there at 8:15ish. But I'd made some progress, was about a 4-5 by the time the epidural went in. The relief is instant with those things, and my BP instantly improved because I was in less pain. I also continued to progress more quickly. By 11:30 I was at an 8 and moving quickly, by 12 my OB had arrived and started making all the preparations for delivery. My legs were pretty numb and I was worried it would take me longer to push her out because I couldn't feel much. I'd had my epidural a lot longer with Gavin and I think it was beginning to wear off by the time I delivered so I felt quite a bit of his delivery, and he came out very easily.

They had a NICU team in the delivery room in case she needed it, there were 2 student or new nurses in there, as well as my OB and regular nurse, I think all together there were about 10 people in the room! Definitely the most I've ever had in a delivery room. Kinda weird, but it was fine. My nurse was AWESOME, funny and calming and on top of everything. I'll be writing Stephanie a very nice note. My OB was great too. Preparations were done and I was ready, pushed twice and out she came! No tearing or cutting neccesary thank goodness. She came out pretty purple, but cried on her own and Dr. said she was really strong and kicking and moving on her own. Guesses were made on her weight before delivery, and my nurse had guessed right on, 6lbs 2 oz! A great size for a 4 wk preemie.

Chris got to cut the cord and then they took her over to the incubator to make sure she was ok, so I didn't get to hold her right off the bat. They did all the finish up stuff on me and then let me hold her. There's nothing like holding your baby for the first time, the feeling of heaven in the room. She was beautiful and perfect, and we'd worked so hard to get her here. It just felt so good to finally hold her in my arms. I think I would have totally bawled like a baby if there hadn't been 10 people in the room, but I tried to hold it together and only a few tears of joy were shed.

She ate well right away, totally knew what to do! I'm always amazed at baby's instincts. I had to stay in the Labor ward for about 5 hrs so they could monitor my BP which still wasn't going down. They started me on a BP medicine, not magnesium thanks goodness, which they had threatened. They finally decided I wasn't in any danger of stroking or seizuring, so they moved me to my lovely room in Mother Baby. These rooms are HUGE! very nice. The evening went well, the kids and Chris came and saw the baby, the kids were so sweet with her and so excited that she's finally here. Gavin is excited to not be the youngest any more, and Maci is going to be such a great big sister and mommy's helper. We did great over night, tried to get as much sleep as I could between feedings and BP monitorings and whatnot. She's still eating great and really hasn't cried much at all! We'll see how long that lasts ;-)

We feel so blessed to have this baby in our family. We've known so many people who have struggled with infertility or having very difficult pregnancies and are grateful that after our short trial of patience and faith, our wishes for another baby have finally happened. I still want to have one more, and hopefully now what we know what works it won't take as long next time. We'll see where we're at in a couple years :-)

Thanks to all our family and friends who have sent us support from around the country. We miss you all! but know that our friends here are taking good care of us. Pics to come when I get them off of our camera!
Love you all
Ali

Random Happenings

2010-08-29T09:19:00.000-07:00

Been too long again since my last post. Here's what we've been up to.

Daddy had a fabulous 31st birthday. We went out to dinner and a movie I think?? This is why I should write about it the day it happens :-) We also made him his favorite dinner on his birthday which was a Sunday, Eggrolls and Sweet and Sour Chicken, yummm. Glad we've made it through another year babe!

We also went to visit the Dunakey clan in Omaha in July. We had a great time, just me and the kids while Chris stayed home and did school. We went to the Omaha Zoo and to a fun waterpark, and just generally hung out and talked, ate good food, and had fun! Thanks for letting us stay guys, can't wait to do it again!

August brought lots of HEAT!! way worse than last summer here. But we've survived. We also got to go to Utah again for Joel's wedding! Chris and I ventured on our own since buying 2 tickets is much cheaper than buying 4. The kids stayed with our great friends the Kirkham's, thanks to Amy for being such a trooper, her 5 kids and my 2 with no husband because he was in India that week! They had a great time, and so did we! It was so fun to see Joel and Alicia so happy and ready to start their new life together. Great trip.
The old clan, we've known some of these people for 15 yrs!!, Chris has known them even longer.

Last but not least Chris took his Comprehensive Exams on the 21st. HUGE test, 6 hrs straight on 5 different subjects. He studied for a week straight after we got home from Utah. Stressed beyond comprehension!! But it went pretty well, he hopes to have passed 4 out of the 5 tests, he gets the results next week. The ones he doesn't pass he gets to retake orally on the 12th of Sept. So hopefully by the 13th we'll be DONE with Comps and not have to worry about it anymore!! His schedule has slowed down a bit from the summer which has been very nice. I believe this last summer has been our toughest section of school and that now we'll be on a downhill run, especially with not trying to juggle work and school. For now he's not going to work, and I think we'll be ok with that, it's been a huge blessing to us all for him not to have to worry about that. The Lord will provide!

The kids both started school, Maci's in 2nd grade and Gavin started preschool 3 days a week! They're both loving it and doing well so far. I'm enjoying 9 hrs a week of "free" time, which I get to fill up with work uninterrupted :-) until baby makes her arrival.

One other big announcement that came out recently is that my parents are going on their 3rd mission! To Hawaii no less! They will be teaching institute at the University of Hawaii, they leave on Sept. 7th and will hopefully be back next August. They are excited for the sudden change of plans, they were planning on leaving sometime in January to Southern Virginia University, but the Lord had other plans for them and they took this great opportunity to go serve in the islands again. We wish them well but they will be missed! Maybe somehow we'll be lucky enough to be able to visit.

I think that catches us up somewhat! 8 weeks to go before the baby comes, so much to do!!! Super Saturday season cannot get over fast enough.

I'm so glad when Daddy comes home

2010-07-10T18:57:00.001-07:00

So Father's Day has come and gone, but I wanted to take a moment and write down my thoughts on my fabulous husband and daddy to my kids. They are SO glad when he gets home every day, running to the door and meeting him with hugs and smiles. He's always so willing to listen to their day, even when he's exhausted and starving and just wants to sit down. They love him so much, and want to spend every minute they can with him. He loves to play with them, their newest "thing" is playing tag in the yard with them. Gavin loves playing the Wii with him, and Maci loves snuggling with him watching a movie or playing in the yard with him.

Chris has been such a trooper through the last couple years. What he is doing is HARD, and he's been working part time as well, which only a fraction of the other students are doing. He's worked so hard at doing well in school so that he can further his career and provide for his family, while he's doing something he loves. I'm so proud of his accomplishments so far and know he's going to help a lot of people in his life.

Chris has been my best friend for a LONG time, long before we got married. I'm so glad that I get to go through my trials and hardships with him, as well as our happy times and joyous occasions. He makes my life so much better, and I'm so grateful that he's mine for eternity!

So, Happy LaTe Father's Day babe, I Love You!

And we're back. . .

2010-07-10T18:39:00.000-07:00

Since being home, we've kept busy doing fun things for the summer. We've been to the Nixa pool several times, Table Rock Lake several times, playing in the hose A LOT!! and having friends over. Our good friends the Eckersley's moved last week :-( They will be missed! but we wish them well with their new endevours, wherever they may be. We hope to see them still as they're living with their parents in Branson for the next couple of months. Nixa won't be the same without them!!

With the Eckersley's moving, came the loss of Chris's job. EHN, their company, closed down. So, Chris is now jobless, but in a way this is a blessing. He's so busy with school, it was becoming increasingly clear that the work load at school, client load, and working part time was just too much. The last week Chris worked I literally could see his brains oozing out of his head. So, for now, he's not going to work. With his current school and client schedule, we're not sure what he could find in way of a job anyway. So we're praying hard and cutting back and hoping that somehow we'll make it through without that extra income. The last couple of weeks have been much better, although still stressful for Chris, but I think it's the right decision for now, at least until his thesis is done in Dec., that he focus on school. That job was such a blessing for the past 2 years though, we're so grateful for it!!

The pregnancy is still going great. I've felt terrific the last couple months, and am just now starting to feel like I'm getting bigger, maybe swelling a little bit?! which isn't fun, but could be worse! The baby is moving a lot and the kids love to feel her kick. I can't believe she'll be here in a little over 3 months! it's gonna be a huge adjustment, but we're excited and ready, kinda ;-)

We celebrated July 4th with some of Chris's friends from school, who were nice enough to invite us over. Thanks Mike, Katie, Kylie and Robbie! We had a great time, did some fun fireworks that actually shoot in the air, and saw a great show right out back of Mike's apartment in an adjacent golf course. It was a great show! Monday after the 4th, Chris had school and clinic off! So we headed down south to Eureka Springs, AR. It's a beautiful little artsy city, reminded me a lot of Park City. We explored the shops, got some fudge which I promptly ate pretty much by myself, saw the Crescent Hotel, and ate at a little Italian place, which we will NOT be frequenting, if you get my drift. But overall, it was a fun day of driving and discovering new places.

So far, it's been a spectacular summer, and we're going to enjoy the next month before school starts again for the kids!

Utah Trip 2010

2010-07-10T17:47:00.001-07:00

We had such a great time in Utah this summer. We started out the drive at 6pm in the evening, and arrived in UT around 3 the next afternoon, driving straight through. The kids did great and Chris drove most of the way. We drove the trailer with his motorcycle on it for his big Moto Trip 2010 with Josh and Joel! I should make Chris do a whole post on that part of his journey. Needless to say they had a fantastic time!!

Highlights of our trip were as follows
*Mikayla's graduation, am I really old enough to have a niece graduated?! At least she's not MY daughter :-)
* Allysa's baptism
* Lots of outings, Boondocks w/Grandpa W., Pirate Island w/Grandma W, SLC Temple and lunch at the Church Office building w/Grandma and Grandpa B, Legacy Center, Thanskgiving Pt, and more I'm probably forgetting!
* TONS of cousin time. Anne's family was living at my mom and dad's while they found a house to buy, so we got to see them A LOT. The kids had such a ball, mostly playing out in the water, if it wasn't snowing that day ;-)
* Snow!! yes, about 3" of snow fell on May 24th, not completely unusual for UT weather, but definitely more snow than we'd seen in a while! This happened to be the day Chris was supposed to leave for his motorcycle trip. They waited out the storm a couple hours till after lunch, it cleared up and melted away, and they were off for their great adventure!
* Several outings with Mary, Maria, etc + kids, it's so good to catch up with old friends!
* IKEA need I say more.
* Relaxing evenings with both sides of the family, chatting and just hanging out.
* Boren Carnival, where we had a new event, an egg drop off the roof! Funnest event of the day, and both Maci and Ali's eggs survived the drop!
* Highland City Splash Park
* Lucky enough to meet Baby Elijah, Anne's newest addition, one day before we left!
* Having enough time to start and finish a rag quilt for new baby!

We had such a great time, and it was hard to leave. Katie drove back with me since Chris had to come back shortly after his motorcycle trip. She was a great help and kept the kids fed and entertained while I drove (she drove a little too :-) She got to stay a few days after we arrived back home so we could show her around the Ozarks. We had a great time at the Discovery Center, down in Branson, at Table Rock Lake, and of course had to take her to Andy's! Thanks Kate for making sure we got home safely!!

Catching up

2010-06-26T19:57:00.000-07:00

So it's been months since I've posted, and a lot has happened! So I'll do my best to catch up. May flew by with the end of school and gearing up for our trip to Utah at the end of May. Maci had a fabulous last couple of weeks. She won 1st grade first place for her art piece of purple iris's that she made with the side of her hand, they're so cool! She also won 8-9 ribbons, various places, for a bunch of Language Arts pieces she had in the LAD fair for the District. Her teacher was very proud of her and her pieces are very thoughtful and interestingly written.

Chris finished off his Spring semester with straight A's again, and in some very challenging classes. He's doing fabulously in school and if we can get through this summer, with some more very tough classes, thesis work, and Comps at the end of the Summer, I think we'll have made it through the most difficult part of our time here.

I've been working lots and trying to sell as much as I can to keep things afloat here. It's slowed down a bit in May/June but is picking up again hopefully for the Fall season. It was so nice to take a break for about a month though when we went to UT. It was much needed!

Our biggest news in May came on the 17th. I went to a specialist at 17 wks since I've had High Blood Pressure with my past pregnancies. I haven't had any problems yet but they wanted a baseline to see where I was at "normally" so if it goes up they'll know how much, etc. So, I didn't know this appt. included a full ultrasound! I asked the nurse if they'd be able to tell the sex of the baby yet, and she said they probably would be able to. I hadn't arranged for Chris to be with me because I thought it would be a pretty routine exam, so I wasn't sure if I should find out on my own or not?! I called Chris and he said I could find out, but I really didn't want to without him there, so I asked the nurse if she could write it on a piece of paper and put it in an envelope. She said that'd be fine, so did the whole ultrasound thing, met with the Dr. who said everything looked great with the baby and he wasn't too concerned about the BP thing, as long as it didn't turn into pre eclampsia, which hasn't happened with me in the past. I'm headed home where I know Chris is there, but he has to leave soon to get to class. This envelope is burning a hole in my hand!! Gavin was at a friends being babysat, but Chris picked up Maci from school for me because I was running late. Anyway, I had to go home to get Maci so Chris could get to class, before I went and got Gavin! Chris said he didn't feel good about opening it without Gavin there, and after a little pouting from me, I agreed. So I had to wait the agonizing 3 hrs. more till Chris got back from his class so we could all open it together.

I tried not to tackle him when he got in the door, but shortly thereafter we opened the envelope. There on a big piece of paper was written "It's a Girl!!" We were so excited. I had a feeling it was a girl, but staring at the ultrasound pictures from that day I had thought it was a boy. I obviously can't read ultrasounds very well :-) We're all very excited that we're having another little girl. Gavin's even excited because he'll be moving into his own room, which I was kind of suprised about. I thought he might have reservations about being on his own, but he seems excited about it, as long as we can put some cool posters up that he chooses. I'm cool with that.

So we're working on getting the rooms rearranged, haven't done much yet but the plans are in the works. We'll talk names at a later date.

I think I'll leave this post on that happy note! Here's a few pics from our happenings, I'll try and catch up on the UT trip next post.

Easter Happenings

2010-04-15T19:11:00.000-07:00

We had a terrific Easter this year. We had a full weekend with Chris's dad in town. Unfortunately it seemed I forgot my camera every place we went! So no pics to chronicle the fun, but we went to the Animal Safari in Stafford where you get to feed wild animals out of the windows of your car. It was pretty crazy actually! Camels, Zebras, Emus, and some very aggressive Donkeys all got a taste of our food, as well as several other varieties of animals. It was fun, but slobbery. We also went to the kids soccer games, and to the Chinese Acrobat show down in Branson. We had a great time and we hope Chris's dad did too!

We also got to spend Easter with him. We colored eggs the night before, and did a little hunt Easter morning. Conference was that weekend so we just hung out and listened to conference during the day, Chris smoked a pork butt, which was delicious! and I made about 10 qts. of strawberry freezer jam. It was a great relaxing weekend. Hope your Easter was the same!

Soccer Peaps

2010-04-04T07:00:00.000-07:00

The kids are playing spring soccer this year and having a blast. Here's some shots from our game a week ago, where it was FREEZING cold, windy to chill the bone, and just plain miserable. But both kids played great and had fun despite the weather. Our game yesterday was perfect weather and much more enjoyable for both players and spectators. 4 games left, I'm sure we'll enjoy it while it lasts! Maci's team are the Wolves and Gavin's team are the Sharks.

We also built a little fire pit in our backyard last weekend. It was Spring Break and we had done nothing fun and Chris has been wanting to build one for a while, so we went to the local brick store and got some pavers, and built one ourselves. It turned out pretty good, nothing spectacular or fancy, but much cheaper than the fancy 260$ kit at the brick store. We christened it that night with some friends of Maci's and it was a big hit. It's a fun novelty to break up a monotonous week.

Other than that, we really didn't do much for Spring Break. Chris still had to work, we didn't have much money to go on a big trip, so we just hung around mostly. We played with friends lots, played the Wii too much, etc. Maybe next year we'll do something exciting.

Announcing!

2010-03-18T16:07:00.000-07:00

Announcing what 90% of our friends and family know already, but I haven't written it in the blog yet. . . . .

We're expecting Baby #3!

I am currently about 9 weeks along, feeling pretty icky, but very excited that our somewhat long journey through the scary world of "infertility" is finally at a close, at least for this go round. I had an ultrasound at 6 weeks, because on fertility drugs there can be an increased risk of ectopic pregnancy and to put my mind at rest that there really was something in there doing well. Everything looked good, implanted in the right place, only one baby, phew :-D I am going to have another ultrasound on Monday to ensure everything is still progressing as it should.

We are very excited and overwhelmed that it's actually happening! You'd think that when you try so hard to get something, that when it comes you'd be relieved, and I AM!! but I'm also nervous about the future, about how we'll handle the added stress of a new baby, if I'll be able to still work part time doing craft stuff, if the kid will know Chris when he's gone so much! just kidding ;-D but I know all that stuff will work itself out, and that we're so blessed to finally get another little spirit into our home. It seems like everyone in the world is pregnant or just had a baby around me, so I'm so excited to get to hold MY little bundle of joy. The kids are so excited, of course Maci wants a girl and Gavin wants a boy. We'll find out around June I think what it is and who will win that battle. Thanks for all your thoughts and prayers as we've traveled this road and can finally see the end!

If God wanted holes in your ears. . .

2010-03-18T15:49:00.000-07:00

Oh well, we did it anyway! We let Maci get her ears pierce a couple weeks ago. She really wanted to do it for her 7th birthday, but we decided to wait a couple weeks to make sure she REALLY wanted to do it. I initially thought we'd wait for a momentous birthday like 8th or 12th or something, but she wanted to do it and I thought she's old enough to make that decision, and I really don't have a passionate stance one way or the other, so I said she could go for it.

We made it a girl's day out and went to lunch at Chili's before heading over to the Mall. We had a great chat at lunch and ate delicious Chicken Crispers, yumm. Then we scoped out Claire's at the mall, it was crazy busy, so we just walked around and looked for future earrings to wear, and Maci wanted to see one girl get it done before she did it herself. Big mistake! It was a younger girl, probably 4ish, and she screamed for a good 10 minutes after she'd had it done. So. . . that freaked Maci out. We decided to go down to a little kiosk in the mall that didn't have quite as long a line and where we were guaranteed to have 2 people to punch the holes at the same time. So she picked out her studs, and then proceeded to freak out and cry for about 5 minutes, all the while I kept saying she didn't HAVE to do this so the workers knew I wasn't forcing her!! Then she finally settled down enough to get in the chair, crying all the while, and they just went for it. She said it hurt a lot!! and continued to cry for another 10 minutes, while I was blowing on her ears, etc. All the moms passing by gave me pitiful glances and one even came up to Maci and said "Oh your ears look so great!" which made me smile, thank you kind mom :-D She finally quieted down and we went and picked out some more regular earrings for her to wear when she's done with the studs. After she said over and over how GLAD she was she did it even though it hurt. I was proud of her for facing her fears and being brave!

I think I drilled it into her enough that we only get one set of earrings, although mommy had her rebellious days when she had, gasp, 5 holes in her ears! Hopefully Maci will see the error in my ways and won't make the same choices I made, even though I loved how those earrings looked in my younger, cooler days.

They Say It's Your Birthday

2010-02-22T20:07:00.000-08:00

Maci had a Birthday! on Feb. 12th, she turned 7 years old. How I got old enough to have a 7 year old. . . . uggg. But she is 7 nonetheless. We started the day off with pancakes, her request. She didn't have school that day, but we couldn't do her bigger friend party that day, so we let her choose whatever she wanted to do that day just her, me and Gav. She chose to go swimming at the indoor pool here. We did end up taking a few friends with us too. It was a fun change of pace. That night we had chicken noodle soup, her favorite! with biscuits, and ice cream for dessert. We ate by candlelight and had fancy glasses with Sprite and marashino?? cherries, a Grandma Sharon tradition. It was a great night and we had a lot of fun. She opened her presents and was happy with all her goodies.

DS game and Candy Jewelry making thing a ma bob

ZuZu pets balls and tunnel thingies.

Littlest Pet Shop from Gav.New Spring Dress

Saturday was party day. Maci has become quite a good little roller skater! so she wanted to take a few friends roller skating. We met there in the afternoon. The other girls did their best, one of them it was her first time ever on skates! We shuffled around the rink a bunch, while Maci cruised by all of us ;-D But I think all the girls had a good time. The rink was so crowded with other birthday parties, Roller Skating is definitely cool again! We stayed about an hour, then went and got the Roller Skate Cake from home and went to Braum's for cake and ice cream. Maci helped me decorate the cupcake cake, it turned out cute! All the girls had a great time and I think Maci had a fabulous birthday.

Emily E., Lily P, Maci and Sydney J.

Maci has a very tender heart. She takes things very seriously, and knows how to show compassion and kindness to others. She loves school, is reading like crazy, and loves art. She loves her brother, even though they sometimes fight, but most often she's helping him with something, playing "puppies" with him, or using the couch as a jungle gym with him, much to Daddy's dismay! Recently they've been into building obstacle courses, and love to challenge themselves with weird jumps and tricks. Maci loves doing her hair and always has a flower or bow in her hair. She's getting too grown up! She loves going to church and I'm always amazed at what she can remember about stories when we talk about them at FHE. She's reading through the Book of Mormon Reader with us and can read most of the words. She has such a sweet spirit and we love having her in our home! We Love You Maci!

Craft Blogs a GaGa

2010-02-08T07:40:00.000-08:00

So I've come across a few craft blogs of late, and I think I'm officially addicted. Although reading these blogs may induce a feeling of inadeqaucy when in comes to how crafty you are and all the great ideas you thought you had, they still give you a ton of fun new things to try out and make your home look cute, so you take the good with the bad I guess! My favorite one for learning how to refinish furniture, which I'm dying to try, is www.allthingsthrifty.com I really love the way they use glaze and make the pieces look old and antiqued. I think I'll tackle our beat up coffee table, whenever I find a spare weekend, which could easily be never, so we'll see. But I've tried their techniques on some candlesticks I got at Goodwill, and they turned out really cool, so I'm excited to try a bigger piece.

I also found this great tutorial, although I think the one I looked at originally was not this site, this is the same idea and she gives a good tutorial, so check it out! Tutorial HERE.
I did mine turqoise, a color I'm thinking of adding to our living room decor due to influence from the All Things Thrifty girls, she has orange and turquoise together, so it must be ok, right? I'm still undecided on it, but it really does lighten up the space. This is actually hanging in my hall, so it's kind of removed from the orange room, but I need to tie it in somewhere or it just looks like a turquoise frame that is totally out of place. Anyway, it was really easy to make and took me maybe an hour total? with drying times in between, etc. So if you have an old frame lying around, try this one out! I got all my little frames at the 1$ store, clips at Walmart.

I also tried out this adorable Heart Burlap wreath, because I had leftover burlap from the frame and I wanted a cute wreath for Valentines Day. I found this PERFECT tutorial over at Diary of a Craftaholic. Click HERE for the tutorial. This was a really fun and easy project, Maci helped me out with it during the Super Bowl and it was done in 20 min. or so. I wish I'd used heavier wire, so if you can use the big fat wire from Home Depot or something like that, I would definitely do that, it would help your heart shape to be more defined.

Hope you get lost in the world of craft and DIY blogs, there's so much great info out there and fun projects to do. Enjoy!!

Snow Day

2010-02-08T07:00:00.000-08:00

Seems as though I'm about 2 weeks behind on all my posts! Oh well, such is life. We got a dump of snow about a week ago, way more than we saw last year during the entire winter. Maci got out of school one day, so we took advantage of the rare build up of snow and went sledding! We actually left all our sleds in Utah, one less thing to pack at the time, so we had to scrounge around the city and find some. Walmart was out, but Ace saved the day :-D We had a really great time, day one was pretty cold, it was still snowing and very windy. But we woke up the next morning, Saturday, and it had snowed another 3-4 inches and was a beautiful sunny day! so we headed for round 2. It was really fun, the kids had a blast, and I got a great workout climbing up and down the hill. It's not Utah snow, but we took what we could get!!

Day 1, snowy and COLD!!

Day 2, much warmer!! we'd all shed our coats by the end.

Gavy likes the on the knees and backwards approach.

We built a killer "jump", until Chris tried it and totally obliterated it :-D

Chris started seeing clients at the clinic, which he's very excited about. He came home his first day of seeing someone and just had a fire in him! he was so pumped about it. So PHEW that he likes it!! and will be great at it as well. Maci's been reading up a storm and doing great in school. She's in a book club her teacher started where they read things and then make collages, watercolors, and other art things to go with the stories for comprehension, which I think is fabulous!! she's really enjoying that. We can't believe our little girl is turning 7 this week!! We have a slew of plans for the weekend, they actually don't have school on Friday because of a Parent Teacher Conf. make up day, so we'll get to party all day!! and Sat. too probably. We'll post pictures. Gavin is all boy still, loves to play the wii, and we've been trying to squeeze in a little learning every day with letter flashcards and coloring, etc. We may opt for a "real" preschool next year, he's very NOT ready for kindergarten, but I'm sure he'll be ready by the time it comes.

I've been busy busy with wood stuff, I've tried to cut back and have done better, but I think I still need to cut back more!! So we're working on that. I am officially off the board of the PTA though, so that's a step in the right direction, right? I still had one toe in all these months, but officially resigned last week, Phew :-D I still plan on volunteering for the parties, etc, just not in charge of them, which is great. I really commend people who can do PTA 100%, but I am not one of those people right now, maybe when my kids get older.

No bun in the oven yet. . . that's all I'll say about that :-D

And that's our last month in review!

Reflecting

2010-01-19T22:51:00.001-08:00

Maci won 1st place in her age category, K-3, for a picture she drew for the Reflections Contest at school. The theme was Beauty Is. . . she drew a picture of a butterfly. They had a little ceremony at a school for all the winners in the district and she got a medal which she loves. We're proud of you Maci!

Christmas 2009 Edition

2010-01-02T20:10:00.000-08:00

Boy was it a different Christmas Season for us this year! No family caroling, no driving around to see the luminaries on Christmas Eve, no Alpine 10th Ward Christmas Eve Pageant, no homemade family gift exchange. We had a very low key Christmas, which was very enjoyable in some ways, and very quiet and strange in others! Chris and I were talking yesterday about it, and how it was a very nice Christmas, it just didn't feel like Christmas because it was so different from what we're used to! But lovely still the same. So here's how we passed the time away.

I got strep throat on Wed, the 23rd. Lucky me!! Chris was fabulous and took care of the kids completely on Wed, I was out for the count. Luckily my meds started to kick in by Thurs. morning, so we ventured out and went to breakfast at IHOP. We wanted to go somewhere more authentic and had planned to go to a place downtown, but I was feeling so icky that I couldn't really taste the food, could barely swallow the food! so we opted for the more low key IHOP. It was fun, the kids liked it, I tried to tell them why my parents started going out on Christmas Eve for breakfast in the first place, kind of the same situation we're in with no family around when they lived in Idaho, and to make a new, fun tradition. Not sure all that sunk it, but I saw the parallel at least.

The rest of Christmas Eve was pretty low key, we played some games, made rolls and cookies for Santa, let the kids open their jammies and one other toy present. We watched the Nativity on dvd and tried to go over the True meaning of Christmas one more time before the mayhem the next day. I think they liked the show and we felt the Spirit as a family.

Christmas morning came pretty late at our house! The kids snuck out around 7:45 and took a peek at the presents, then came and woke us up! stinkers. But I was just glad they slept in a little. I was feeling pretty good at this point, thank goodness for antibiotics when you really need them! The kids loved all their goodies from Santa, Maci really wanted a Mermaid Barbie, a pink one this time, since she got a purple one last year but she really wanted the PINK one. Well, Santa obliged. She also got a Furreal puppy that rolls over, barks, etc. Gavin got his Maxus Draganoid, which he has been talking about non stop for about 4 months now! He was so excited, and as soon as it was out of the box had it put together in a flash. He's studied the YouTube videos of kids putting it together over and over. He also got a tin to put all his Bakugan in. He made a killing in the Bakugan department this year.

Love the Snuggies!!

We Skyped Chris's mom while the kids opened their presents so she could watch them, that was fun. They got lots of fun things and thoroughly enjoyed all the mayhem. We were very unorganized and just threw all the paper in the corner, figured we could clean it up later. It was pretty messy by the end!! We all got spoiled by the grandparents on all sides, THANK YOU!! for all you sent, the kids loved it all.

We piddled around in the morning, got ready and went to Princess and the Frog which the kids thoroughly enjoyed, then we came home and roasted a turkey, made all the trimmings, and had a great family dinner. The kids played with their toys, we listened to Christmas music, drank out of fancy glasses, and just enjoyed each others company. There is something to be said for doing your own thing on Christmas, it was totally relaxing and enjoyable, we just tried hard not to notice the sometimes quiet lulls when we are thinking about what we're used to back home. But I'm glad we've gotten to experience both types.

Feasting on Asphalt DVD's, love 'em! All my goodies, Santa did me proud!

During the break we've played lots of games, Toss Up and Pictureka are our new favorites, played lots of Wii and DS, watched too many movies, played outside when it's not too cold, and just enjoyed each other, for the most part :-D On New Year's Eve we went to a friend's from church with a couple other families and played Scum for about 3 hours straight, and counted down to the ball drop. It was really fun. New Year's Day we ventured south to Hollister to the Keeter Center which is on a local college campus. We were looking for a Homestead kind of vibe, and definitely found it there. The ambiance was great, the food was awesome and reasonably priced, and it was a really fun place to go. Maci thought it was a very fancy place and can't wait to go back. This may be a new tradition for our family. We did a little shopping in Branson, and then headed home to meet up with the Dunakey's who are in town from Omaha!! We've had Emma sleep over 2 nights now and Maci is in heaven, she really misses her friend! and I've caught up with Angelita over making hair bows and eating chinese food. We miss you guys!!

The break is almost over, we're ready for a fresh start and all the exciting things that 2010 will bring to our family. Happy Holidays everybody!

Turkey Trip

2009-12-11T22:11:00.001-08:00

I'm about two weeks late on this post, but as most people say, better late than never. We had a fabulous trip to Utah for Thanksgiving. We had a great flight with no holiday hassle traveling, no horror stories to speak of. Our friends the Eckersley's made up for our lack of horror stories in their trip to Utah, but those stories are for them to tell! The kids were great on the plane, we each took one, and played with our iPods, colored, and played Bakugans.

We were only in Utah for 4 whole days, 2 travel days, so it was a short trip. We managed to see all of our family and a few friends, some of which we hadn't seen in years! We had Thanksgiving dinner with Chris's mom and uncle's family. It was a delicious meal and great conversation. There were too many highlights to write down, but hopefully pictures will capture some of them.

The day before we left Maci had her 1st grade music recital at the school. She even had a speaking part, her recipe for Mashed Potatoes at a Thanksgiving Feast. She did a great job. We have bits on tape, if I ever figure out how to upload video, maybe I'll do that!!

The Highlight of the travelling part of our trip, the Captain on one of the legs of our journey let the kids sit in his chair, and even pull things and push buttons, set off alarms, all while the plain was off of course :-D But the kids thought it was very cool, especially Gavin! He was in there probably 5 minutes? the Captain was really great about it, the stewardess said he's just a big kid.

I should have taken more pictures! We had plenty of Grandma and Grandpa time on both sides, cousin time, sister time for me, candy making time, and wrestling with Uncle Todd until he's ready to scream time! Although it's never enough time (especially when we miss you all so much), we really enjoyed our trip.

This week we've been busy getting ready for the holiday. I saw a kit to make rice crispie houses instead of gingerbread houses and thought that looked fun and different, so the kids and I gave it a whirl one night while Chris was at school. They loved it. I thought this might be more edible, but after sitting out for a couple days, I'm pretty sure it would break a tooth, and Uncle Don would be very upset at us! Still, the pieces were a little easier to attach on a flat surface instead of a vertical house. I saved the mold so we can make them again!

Chris has finals next week, so he's been studying like crazy and getting projects and papers done. He's looking forward to his month off of school, even though he's planning on working on his thesis a lot during that time. We finalized most of our Christmas shopping tonight, thank goodness, we're not usually this behind! Now to wrap it all and get ready for the big day. We're planning on going to Silver Dollar City tomorrow, they're supposed to have fantastic Christmas shows and lights this time of year. We're going to brave the 30 degree weather (feels like 20, or so the weather man tells me) and keep warm for at least a couple hours while we have some fun!

We found some time to squeeze in some family pics with Joel Jenkins. Thank you for squeezing us in Joel on such short notice!! They turned out so great, I LOVE them!!

All the Trimmin's

2009-11-22T20:34:00.000-08:00

We were a little pre-emptive this year and put our tree up tonight! Since we're leaving on Wed. for UT we thought we'd get it done before we left so it would be looking great when we got home. We did the lights on the house yesterday and all the little shelf stuff, and saved the tree for tonight. The kids were excited about it all day, and it was a relatively low stress, low anxiety event for all! which sometimes doesn't happen even though we always want it to. The tree looks great, but going through all our Christmas boxes I've realized I have a lot of stuff I don't use anymore, time to streamline and dejunk!

So we're off for Turkey Day and very excited to see friends and family. Hope all your Thanksgivings are full of friends and family and lots of yummy food!

Nuttin Honey

2009-11-19T19:45:00.000-08:00

Soooooooo, haven't posted for a couple weeks. Maci is reading Junie B. Jones Books, Gavin is playing with Bakugans and is obsessed with watching YouTube videos of people putting their Maxus Dragonoids together, Chris is gone 4 days/nights a week at school, I'm up to my neck in craft orders. That sums up our last couple of weeks!

Maybe if I look at what pictures I've taken it'll jog my memory as to what we've been doing. Here's what I've got.

Yup, this one is old news from while my mom was here helping me recover. We've taken no pics the last two weeks! besides of craft projects. Pitiful.

I had a checkup today, all is good. I get to actually start taking Clomid tomorrow! Yipee that we've finally arrived to this point. Our trip to Utah next week makes it a little more difficult to track my progress, but we'll just kind of leave it up to chance this first month I guess, we don't have much other choice at this point. I'm fine with that. They have you doing like 3 ultrasounds a cycle, plotting this, timing that, take a shot for this, check your follicles on this date, it's too many complicated timings! So, for now we'll just see what happens.

We had a funny interesting thing happen, I don't want to read too much into this, but I want to write it down for future reference? I was thinking of baby names the other day, as babies have been on my mind?! and I really like the name Ellie, but want to name her (if it turns out we have a her) something longer so her nickname would be Ellie. I thought Elaine, since that is a family name, which I like but I'm not in love with. . . Eleanor, which is cute too, but again, not in love with it, then thought Elizabeth. My sister Anne's first name is Elizabeth, it's a "family" name, yes, I like Elizabeth and call her Ellie. I didn't talk to anyone about this on that day. I came home, was making the kids dinner. They got talking about little brothers and sisters, mostly because all their friends have baby brothers or sisters right now. Of course Maci wants a girl, Gav wants a brother. So Maci, out of the clear blue, says "I think we should name our baby sister Elizabeth". I have never ONCE talked to her about the name Elizabeth, she doesn't have a friend named that, I don't know that anyone in her class is named that, it was just completely out of the blue! on the same day I had an incling that I liked that name as well. Anyway, maybe there's a little Elizabeth up in heaven waiting for my follicles to get in line!

I've also had a couple twinges that we might have multiples. Of course your risk is upped with Clomid, but not that significantly, I think it's like 5%. So maybe it's just in my head that we might and that's why I've been thinking about it. But I think I'd really be ok with it at this point! We've always said we'd try for 4, and maybe this is my way of getting it easily without going through all this again. Anyway, who knows what will happen, but if we do end up having twins, or heaven knows, triplets?! I think I'm prepared for that possibility and would be grateful for it.

Well, again I know this is all "personal" stuff, but I WANT to remember all this, so I can look back when we have a beautiful baby and say, see, all that was worth it!!

OK, back to what the kiddies are up to. Maci is an artist. She loves to draw. I showed her how to draw something or write something, and then go around and around it in different colors, radiating out. We used to do that when we were kids, with our names, etc. She loves this "technique" and has started doing it on all her pieces. She loves to draw girls with pig tails. She's moved on from the rainbows, those were so last year ;-D She can write in full sentences, she's flying through school and loves every minute of it, although when I picked her up today she was in tears. She said a boy kept putting his hand in front of her face. She asked him to stop, and he just kept on doing it. I'm not sure why this upset her so much, I guess just the fact that she asked him to knock it off and he wouldn't?! Chris told her that sometimes boys do that when they like you, and she said in disgust "He does NOT like me!" like how icky could you get dad, I'm glad she still has that reaction!

Gavin Gavin Gavin. He is my little buddy. He's such a good sport, patient with me and my crazy wood crap I have to do during the day sometimes. He plays the Wii, plays Bakugans by himself, plays cars on the kitchen floor by me, he's just a good sport about it most of the time. When we have to run errands, he has to know each and every store we're going to before we get in the car. He usually chooses to wine about one of the stores, but now that I have my trusty iPod Touch, with lots of fun games on it, the complaining has been less :-D Gavin needs a haircut desperately, before we leave for UT for Turkey Day for sure! His faux hawk is like no other. Gavin is learning a lot, and mostly on his own because heaven knows I have not been doing my motherly job by printing off worksheets and flash cards for him to study and go through. He is a puzzle genius. He's very good with spacial relations. We also won a game basket at the Fall Festival at school last week. It had a lot of great games in them, but our 2 new favorites are Marbles!! and Toss Up. The kids love trying to hit the Marbles, I never would have thought that such a cheap game could entertain them so much, and Toss Up is a blast for the whole family. It's a dice game that is easy enough for Gavin, but entertaining enough for the rest of us. I creamed everybody last time we played :-D but I think Chris let me win. Gavin is my best bud, and I'm trying to soak up this time I have with him before he starts school and before we add another bundle to the mess. His laugh is infectious and his mischevous smile brightens up my day.

We said goodbye to our good friends the Dunakey's last week. They have been SO WONDERFUL to us since the first week we moved here. Tom literally moved our whole house from our truck into the house, by himself, and Chris, and he didn't even know us?! Their girls have been such good friends to our kids, their oldest McKenna, who is 11, would come and watch the kids while I did woodwork in the afternoons, they're just great kids and we're going to miss them so much! They moved to Omaha for a new job :-( Angelita has been one of my closest friends here and it really hurt to let her go! But we hope to keep in touch and will be bunking in their fabulous new house on our way to UT when we go, or maybe just to party for a couple days!

I did not intend for this to be such a long "journal" type entry, but that's what blogs are sometimes! I promise the next one will be filled with snowfall pics from Utah with friends and family for Thanksgiving. We can't wait to get there and soak up the love of Home for a couple days. Until then. . .

That Bewitching NIght

2009-11-03T17:23:00.000-08:00

We had a fantastic Halloween Week. We started off with Carving Pumpkins on Thursday night, had Maci's classroom parties on Friday night, then Trick-or-Treating on Sat. We also picked our pumpkins out at the patch at Rutledge Wilson farm, which was really fun as well. Here's the pics, they don't need much explanation! Hope your haunting night was as fun as ours.

Surgery Schmergery

2009-11-03T06:30:00.000-08:00

I know I'm behind on Halloween stuff, I'll get that posted today as well. Just thought I'd jot a little line about the cyst situation. My surgery was scheduled for yesterday, and went pretty well. I went in at 7am, they said the Dr. was ahead of schedule and they got me ready pretty quickly. Then I sat on a gurney for about an hour, guess his "ahead of schedule" turned the other direction. Then they gave me my happy juice and the rest is a blur, until waking up in another room feeling totally crappy! I had a slight cough going into this, and they wanted me to cough to get my oxygen levels up, You want me to WHAT?! youch, that really hurt. They wheeled me back in with Chris to wake up the rest of the way. I gotta say, I'm a lot more sore than I thought I would be, they made 3 incisions, all pretty small, but my stomach is feeling the pain. I went home about 7 hrs. after I arrived, drugged up nicely and ready for bed. I pretty much slept the rest of the day/night. This morning I'm feeling pretty good, still not moving too much, and my back hurts from being in one position too much. Thank goodness for my wonderful mom who flew out to help with the kids. She's totally babying me and it's delightful. The kids are having a ball with her, making cinnamon rolls this morning. Thanks mom!!

So the prognosis. When I went in for my pre-op a couple days ago, the Dr. assured me that they would try and save the ovary the cyst was attached to. He said generally this isn't a problem and it should be doable. Well, when he came in to speak with me right before the surgery, he said he'd been thinking about my case all weekend. He said because the cyst had grown so fast, egg sized in about 2 months or so, that he was slightly concerned that it was cancerous. He said if he got in there and the tumor was a solid mass, he'd have to cut it up in little pieces to get it out and get it off the ovary. Then if it was cancer, it would spread and I'd have to have chemo to make sure we got all the pieces. SO, he thought it was in my best interest to just have the whole thing removed. Cancer vs one less ovary. . . . seems like an easy choice, even though it was not what I was expecting or hoping. So they took the ovary. He said my left one would compensate and start ovulating every month, which is good, I didn't know it did that?! He checked out lefty and got it working as well as it can, so in a couple weeks we'll start the Clomid treatments and go from there.

Taking the ovary was my greatest fear going into this. Now that it's happened, I just feel that it's all going to work out ok. Chris gave me several priesthood blessings of health and comfort, and I truly do feel comforted by my Heavenly Father that everything will be ok. He knows our righteous desires to have another baby, and when the time is right, even if it's through adoption, I know that it will happen. It may take a while, years even, but I know that it will happen.

Thanks for all your prayers and thoughts, I have the best friends and family around. We'll keep ya posted! and I promise to get the Halloween pics up :-D

Haunted House

2009-10-16T22:09:00.000-07:00

Here's some pics of our Haunted House of the gingerbread variety. We had fun slurping on the frosting and adding the finishing touches. Maci and Gav love every minute of meticulously putting on the candy and adding the windows, door, etc. Turned out pretty cute if I do say so myself!

The last pic is of the kids dressed up for our Trunk or Treat we had tonight at church. We had a great time.

There's a recurring theme here . . . Maci's cheeseball grin!! Still a cute one though :-D

One more, the kids have a thing about climbing on us when we're sitting down, maybe it gets our attention and makes us not ignore what they're saying?!? Anyway, this was the end result on one such occasion.

Gavin turns 4, take 2

2009-10-10T20:32:00.000-07:00

So I'm MONTHS behind, but thought I'd jot down what we've been up to the last little while. Gavy's actual birthday on August 30th was great, we opened family presents and had his favorite dinner which I think was meatballs. Thanks to all the grandparents for the great presents. You've all hopefully heard this Thank You in person by now ;-D

I wanted to write down a few of my favorite things about Gavin.
Gavin is such a happy little boy, except in the morning. He needs at least half an hour to get into his groove, but after that, he's usually all smiles and loves to play and help.
He's very into Power Rangers and Bakugan right now.
Even though he's all boy, he still loves to play dress up and My Little Pony with the girls. He also HAS to paint his fingernails while Maci and I are painting ours, he has to be part of the fun. We usually paint them black to make up for painting them at all :-D
Gavin loves playing with his sister. They usually play really well together. They still sleep in the same room together, and I'm anxious to see how they do if/when we separate them any time soon.
Gav has a few fun words that he says that we get a kick out of.
Breakdast
Calapitter
Meed (Need)

I know there's way more of those, I just am having a brain freeze tonight. I'll have to come back and fill them in.
Gavin gives the best, tightest hugs ever. He'll come up and squeeze your guts out and say "I just love you so much" Melts your heart. He loves helping me run errands during the day and is my little helper. He's happy to do this, as long as we can cruise the toy aisle "just to look" while we're out. I love this little guy, and can't believe he's 4!!
Love you Gav!

SO, what else have we been up to? School started at the end of August. Maci has Mrs. Struckhoff and is really liking her and 1st grade so far. She's doing really well in school and is ready way above her 1st grade level. She loves doing her homework each weekend and just loves school in general!
Chris is still loving school and is very busy this fall. He's observing other students doing therapy at the school clinic, The Murney Clinic, one night a week, and has class 2 other nights a week, so 3 days a week he's gone from around 8 till around 9pm. Long days for him!! In January he gets to start seeing clients at the clinic, and he's very excited about that. He's loving school and has enjoyed giving practice IQ and First Interviews this semester for a few of his classes. He's still working part time and teaching the Deacons at church. Busy guy! but loving it all.

I've been busy busy with Super Saturdays this fall. I've done 6 in total I think? A couple in OR, UT, ID, and AZ. It has been a great blessing, but I think I've decided I'm a much better creator than producer, I enjoy the creative process much more than pumping out 60 sets of Spooky letters. But I guess it all comes with having a business. You do whatcha gotta do.

PTA has been very busy, and enjoyable for the most part. We had a successful Open House and had a good turn out, everything went pretty smoothly. Because of some of my health stuff going on I decided I just couldn't keep all my pans on the fire so to speak, so after much thought, I decided I needed to step down from PTA. I let everyone know last week, and they've already had 2 people step up and say they'd fill the position, which is a great relief to me!! So I will help from the sidelines from now on, but am happy to let someone else fill the "president" shoes and take charge. It's been a great learning experience though and if things settle down for me personally in the future I wouldn't be opposed to being on the board again. We'll see ;-D

On the baby front, we were planning on starting the Clomid routine, when they found a large cyst, about the size of an egg, on my right ovary. We waited a month to see if it would shrink, but there was no change. So we found out this week that I'll need to have surgery on it, probably around the 1st of Nov. I can't start any fertility treatments until this is taken care of, so it's kind of a must to get rid of it. It's a same day surgery, so shouldn't be too big a deal, recovery should be a couple days. We're hoping that after this we can really get going on the Clomid and hopefully see some "results" soon. Sorry if this is all too personal for a "blog" but I see this as my little journal, so I wanted to jot down my thoughts and remembrances about all this. I know hopefully when we get a baby here that this will all "seem but a small moment", and we're trying to keep positive about the whole situation. I am so grateful for the 2 beautiful kids that we have and for the most amazing husband that I am blessed with. But we still hope to expand our little family to a little bit larger ;-D

We've been so busy we haven't done too many "fall" things yet, but the weather has definitely cooled down. We hope to drive down to Arkansas sometime in the next couple weeks, we hear the foliage down there is a little more colorful than here. Hopefully we'll still get to enjoy a little bit of our favorite time of year.

I need to take more pictures! Next time. . .

Go Go Power Rangers

2009-08-29T18:32:00.000-07:00

I can't believe my baby is 4 years old! Well, tomorrow he will be 4. He's such a little man, adorable and happy most of the time. He's growing up fast and loving every new adventure he gets his hands on! We decided to have a friend party this year, since last year we knew no one and didn't do a big shindig. Gavin invited 4 of his closest friends, 3 of which are girls ;-D His best little friend Emma couldn't make it, but the other 3 did, and with my two that made a party of 5, perfect size. It wasn't too crazy and I think the kids had a fun time. We did a Power Ranger party, Gavin wanted a Bakugan party at the last minute but I didn't know enough about those things to pull it off, so we kept it Power Rangers. I made it pretty easy this year, bought the invitations instead of trying to make adorable handmade ones, bought the cake instead of making it, I just wanted it to be relatively stress free, I have enough stress right now! and I knew Gavin probably didn't care either way.

We decided to do a Power Ranger training session, an idea I found online. We did 5 events, Bad Guy Bowling, Water Balloon Target Practice, Re-Building a City, Kung Fu Practice on the tramp, and then an obstacle course to finish it off. It was really fun and I think the kids enjoyed it. They got a little prize after they finished each one. I made some cool noodle swords for each of them to take home, that we used in some of the events. Then we had cake and opened presents. We decided to give Gav his present from us today, we got him a big boy Spiderman bike. We're going to let him open all the grandparent's presents tomorrow so he'll still have something to open on his bday. He loved his bike and we went to the park tonight and he rode it around quite a bit. He can go much faster than on his big wheel and can keep up with Maci better. Unfortunately for Maci, she left her bike too close to the driveway the other day and I ran over it and broke it. She needs a bigger one anyway, but now she's stuck riding her scooter until we get her a new one. I'm hoping to find a good one at a garage sale or something.

Enjoy the collage, I'm sure there'll be another post tomorrow!

1st Day of 1st Grade

2009-08-21T18:56:00.000-07:00

How do I have a 1st grader? Where does the time go?!?! Maci needed no coaxing or bribing to have a bright and shining face for the 1st day of school. She was so excited and counting down the days. She started on the 19th. Her teacher is fabulous and Maci knows a couple of the girls in her class that were in her kindergarten class. She is excited that she gets to play on the "big kid" playground this year, and even has TESTS!

"So what has been your favorite part of school so far"-Mom

"Every Part! I love school" - Maci

There you have it, that's my Maci for ya! Her favorite subject is Art, I have no idea where she gets that from ;-D but she enjoys it all. She is also wanting to eat school lunch a couple times a week. As long as she'll actually eat the food, I'm ok with that. We'll see how that goes. I'm sure she's going to have a terrific year!

We have attempted to get Gavin signed up for Head Start preschool, which would be every day from about 8:30-12:30. It's kind of a need based program, and unfortunately I'm not sure we're needy enough! We are in the $ department, seeing as they don't even count our student loan money as income, but they also go by if you're a single parent, if Gavin has disabilities, which he doesn't, if there's been trouble at home, the list goes on. And we don't have any of those other things (which is a blessing, I know)! So we'll see if some people in front of us on the wait list drop out, but I'm betting that we won't get in this year. Next year he might have a shot, they also go on age and since he's not officially 4 till the 30th, on their charts he's a 3 year old. Another strike against us! Oh well, I'll enjoy my little Gavy sidekick for another year. Even part day preschool here is 100-200$ a month. Crazy!!

I'm also struggling with balancing PTA stuff already. Our President is moving to Houston and 2 of the VPs have balled out already, so I'm next in line for Pres. This would be fine if I had any idea how to be a PTA president. I DON'T!! But it looks like I'll be filling in for now. The principal is super sweet and has done her best to help me get my bearings, but I'm very nervous about how much time it's going to take and having angry parents because I'm not doing something right. I have 3 other great ladies helping me out, but none of us have ever done PTA before. SCARY!! I'm really liking the work we've done so far, I'm just swamped as it is. So it's going to be a very busy year. We may have to scrap some of the small stuff and just try and focus on survival and a couple fund raisers. I'm sure I'll be complaining, I mean journaling, about all my PTA experiences this year ;-D

Hope your first week of school was as eventful as ours was!

8 Years and Counting

2009-08-16T15:17:00.000-07:00

Yesterday was our 8th Anniversary! I generally don't get too sappy on the blog, but it IS our anniversary after all. So I'm going to jog down memory lane a bit, more just to have it on record somewhere than for the benefit of those of you who may read this blog.

It's fun to get married in the summer, but we've found that the middle of August is generally a pretty hectic time! The past 8 August 15ths have included such things as 2 Boren Family camping trips, 1 Trip to St. George, 1 trip to Cedar City, and last years most exciting anniversary ever, moving to Springfield MO! Even though it's a busy time of year, I love having one day a year that we can focus on all the happy memories that we've shared together, and the wonderful life we've built for ourselves and our kids.

I've known Chris for almost 13 years now. He has always been the person that could cheer me up when I'm down, be my wall when I'm crumbling, give me a break when I need it, make me laugh more than anyone I know, be the BEST dad to my kids, be a wonderful provider even when he didn't like what he was doing, shows our kids that education is important and sticking in there till the end, be a worthy priesthood holder in our home, and all that other mushy stuff that wives love to say about their husbands. He is my best friend and I can completely be my true self whenever he is around.

Thank you Babe, for always being there for me and for being a TERRIFIC husband! I love you, and hope we have 68 more wonderful August 15ths to celebrate.

(yes I know I'm a day late in posting this ;-D )

Oh What do you do in the Summer TIme?

2009-08-13T18:43:00.000-07:00

I've been a horrible blogger this summer. I blame some of it on the fact that I spilled O.J. on our nice camera and had to say goodbye to it, and we haven't had the cash to purchase a new one. Luckily we still had our older, but much larger, camera that works fine. It's just much bigger and not easily put into a purse or pocket to take cute pics everywhere we go. Excuse #2 is that we've been really busy!! With what, I cannot pinpoint, but this summer has just flown by. So here's a miniature version of our last 2 months.

We've been swimming, A LOT! We got a 3 month pass to our local community center that has an indoor pool, the local outdoor one is usually very crowded and has lots of unruly teenagers at it wearing skimpy clothing. So we opted for the much less crowded indoor variety. We've been there LOTS and have definitely gotten our money's worth out of it. The kids also took swimming lessons, which they really enjoyed. They both learned a lot, including jumping off the diving board and swimming to the ladder, even Gavin can do this now without floaties or help! Maci is working on her strokes and is becoming a very good little swimmer.

We had a great 4th of July with some friends, the Eckersley's. Their parents own a cabin down on Table Rock Lake, they were at the time on a mission but are now home. They were gracious enough to let us crash at their pad for a couple days, swimming in the lake, watching movies, and generally bumming around for the 4th. We did some fireworks down on the lake, they have cool ones here that shoot up in the air, the kids really enjoyed that. It was a really fun weekend.

Chris still had a full load at school, and worked 24 hrs. a week. He just finished finals this week and has a couple weeks off before school starts up again. He's doing terrific, and so far has 2 A's, one class he still doesn't have the verdict yet. I'm so proud of how hard he's working, while still holding down a part time job. He's really enjoying school for the most part, and is excited to start practicum this next year and get to observe and speak with clients at the school's clinic they have in Springfield. Keep up the great work babe!

We've been to Silver Dollar City several times this summer. We bought a season pass at the beginning of the year, and have put it to good use. It's nice that every time we go, we know we don't have to do EVERYTHING because we can always come again. I think we'll go quite a bit in the fall when it cools down and gets less crowded. It's open till Jan 1st, so we still have plenty of time to use it. Maci's favorite ride is Thunderation, which is a pretty good knock off of Thunder Mountain at Disney Land. Gavin's favorite is the carnival swings that go up off the ground and then around and around. I personally LOVE that one, (barf) It's a fun little park. Chris and I haven't ventured on any of the big roller coasters yet, I'm not a huge fan of those anyway.

Chris had his 30th Birthday!! We celebrated with dinner and a movie I believe. His birthday was on a Sunday, so we went out on Saturday. We made his favorite dinner on Sunday, Swiss Steak I think? and Peach Cobbler for dessert. He got a new pair of Arnett Sunglasses for Father's Day that kind of counted for birthday too, and a few new t-shirts. He bought a new motorcycle jacket ( a winter jacket I'm told) with money from his mom and my parents. His dad got him a set of videos that he loves about a motorcycle documentary type thing. I know it sounds boring but it's really good actually. It's called the Long Way Down and Long Way Round series, if you like motorcycle trips (and Ewan McGreggor) you'd like these.

The last couple weeks here we've just been squeezing in lots of playing with friends, swimming some more, and getting ready for school to start. Maci starts on the 19th. I'm working on getting Gavin into Head Start here, it would be 5 days a week for 4 hrs. or so. He really misses Maci during the day and I think it'd be good for him. If we qualify (if we're poor enough ;-) I think we'll do it. He's excited about the prospect of getting to go to school too.

On a more personal note, we've also been working on some fertility issues. We've been trying for a while now and with no luck, which wasn't really a suprise if you know my past history, but I was just hoping that I'd get pregnant easily like I had luckily with my other two. Well, no such luck. I've been diagnosed with Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome and will probably need to go on Chlomid. I've decided to wait one more month before we go ahead with the pills, hopefully once we do it won't take too long before we're expecting baby #3. It's been a kind of rough process, it's just no fun to try and find out what's wrong with you, and then even once you know, to process it all and decide what to do from there. Anyway, we feel good about where we're headed and hope it won't take too long.

We're looking forward to a night out for our 8th anniversary on the 15th. I did get a new calling, 2nd Counselor in the Primary. I'm excited for a change and looking forward to working with the other ladies in the Presidency. That's a wrap! of Summer 09.

Posting

2009-06-28T17:01:00.001-07:00

I haven't posted for a while, not much going on! We've been doing a lot of swimming, running in the sprinklers, staying in the AC inside, and generally bumming away the summer!! It's HOT here, 105+ with the humidity, and we've been trying to keep cool and keep busy. Pictures will follow in the coming days, hopefully :)
Off to soak in a cold tub. . .

I'm ON Vacation!

2009-06-11T21:10:00.000-07:00

So we've been MIA for 3 weeks now, and MAN have we had a ball here in Utah. We've done so many things and seen so many people, we've found that when you don't have a major holiday in the works, i.e. Christmas, you have a lot more "free" time to do fun things! So here's a sampling of what we've done on our vacation to the Beehive State. (This is more for my benefit in the future than for all of you, so if you just look at the pictures, I won't be offended!)

2 Movies-Up and Night at the Museum
Hogle Zoo
Dinosaur Museum
Miniature Golfing
Boondocks
Chuck E Cheese
Going up AF canyon for a cook-out
Oquirrh Mtn. Temple Open House
Went to the Church Office Building and saw Mom and Dad's Office and Temple Square
Had several BBQ's with different groups of friends
Went swimming twice
Thanksgiving Pt. Animal Farm
Went shopping to ALL my favorite stores, I don't think I missed ONE that I had my mind on going to
Ate WAY too much good food
Did not clean, cook, or do much laundry for 3 weeks, Ahhhhhhh
Had a Boren Family Carnival
Got Gavin's hair buzzed by Grandpa
Read books and snuggled
Had lots of fun jumping on the tramp with the sprinklers and sliding on the slip and slide
Spent plenty of quality time with all the cousins
Kids had 3 sleepovers! which meant 3 nights to myself :)
Missed Daddy lots while he was back in MO
Went to the "Wood Park"
Learned how to sew a bag
Bought food storage that you just can't find easily in MO
Watched the rain and thunderstorms for a week straight?! I came here for dry HEAT, not rain?!

Had an overall fabulous time with friends and family, and can't wait to do it all again next summer!!

Thanks to all those who we had a chance to catch up with, we had a GREAT time!!

And we're looking forward to being back in MO with all our friends out there, and getting back to a regular schedule and being productive members of society! :)

Busy Bees

2009-05-17T16:19:00.000-07:00

Time flies when you're having fun, or over extended beyond imagine! We've had a little bit of both the last couple weeks. Here's a rundown of the highlights:

• went to a Kindergarten "Celebration" not Graduation! ('It's a ceremony' - 'It's psychotic!')
• went to a PTA meeting with the principal
• watched Maci play in her last soccer game of the season
• babysat several different families of kids several different times
• survived finals week part 2, Chris finished everything with flying colors
• Spent 4 hours at the Dr.'s office trying to get Gavin to poop, 3 enema's, 2 suppositories, lots of patience, and 12 hrs. later at home, POOP!
• Spent another 2 hrs. in the ER last night with Gavin because of breathing problems, croup. He got 2 steroid shots and a breathing treatment, but is doing fine now. He's on prednizone for 5 more days. He gets croup often when he gets a cold, it was just really bad this time!
• Sent out about 15 orders, business picked back up!
• Did a craft night for my ward, 25 ladies participated, it was a success
• Watched a tooth go from loose to dangling in a matter of days, to OUT tonight!
• Did 20 loads of laundry and countless number of dishes
• Did some work for my other "side" job for Chris's boss, data entry stuff at home
• Tried to get the house somewhat scoured before we leave on Thursday for UT! I hate coming home to a dirty house
• Made it through 2 tornado days, none touched down REALLY close to us, but close enough?! and crazy thunder and lightning, sheets of rain.
• Made it through the first real heat of the summer, I think we're in for a rude awakening! Give me some dry heat PLEASE!
• Had a lovely Mother's Day where I got to do whatever I wanted, which was go for a beautiful country drive with my family, and didn't have to teach primary :)

So that's been our last 2 weeks in a nut shell. We're anxiously baby stepping to Thursday when Maci gets out of school and we'll head that day to UT. We'll probably arrive on Friday late, that's the plan. We're excited to see those of you in UT and will miss those of you here in MO!

They got these bears and autographed each others' bears.

PTA Conference

2009-05-02T22:02:00.000-07:00

I was asked to be on the PTA committee, more out of no one else signing up than anything else I'm pretty sure, but I said yes (I have a hard time saying no to things, I need Chris to help me work through my issues.) So I'm the VP over Fundraising and Reflections. I have no idea what I'm doing, and no one else on our board has ever done PTA before either, so it should be a fun learning experience for all of us! We went to a conference in Independence this weekend. 3 of them drove up together, but I was scared to go with 3 people I didn't know, so I roped Chris and the kids in to going with me. We left yesterday afternoon, arrived just in time for the kids to go swimming and for me to go to a "rally" where we chanted PTA over and over for 2 hours. Well, not quite, but something like that. I did win a t-shirt in a raffle :)
I went to workshops this morning for about 5 hours, and tried to soak in as much as we could. Chris and the kids went to a great park our friends told us about. They got to ride horses, feed baby goats, and trapse around the park having a great time. I wish I could have joined them, or at least snatched a picture but we forgot the camera on this trip.
They picked me up this afternoon and headed for the Independence Visitor's Center. We hadn't been since Heritage Tours after our Senior Year in HS, and it's been remodeled recently. It was a fun visit and we all learned a little more about the period of time the saints spent in MO. I love the spirit you can feel in all the LDS visitor's centers. There's nothing else like it! We had to get some KC BBQ while we were there, so we went to Arthur Bryan's, one of the best BBQ places around. It was really good, but I kind of felt like I was at Cafe Rio and not knowing the lingo and how to order stuff. Then we headed home.
It was a fun little trip. I was amazed at how many volunteers on the state level there are in PTA. These ladies spend countless hours, probably close to a full time job, helping in every aspect of the PTA for no pay. They simply want to make a difference in MO kids' lives. It was pretty inspiring actually. I really hope to get a Reflections program going in our school, they didn't do it this year and I'm not sure if they've ever done it. We don't have a strong PTA right now at all, so we're hoping to get it going this year and make it fun for all involved. So if you're not a member of your school's PTA, JOIN!! there's people behind the scenes working hard for your kids. (stepped off soapbox now)

3 weeks and counting till we convoy out to UT!!!!

Good books to read as a family

2009-04-25T17:14:00.000-07:00

So Maci's getting to the age where I think she'd enjoy reading a book as a family, me reading it aloud to everyone. I've thought about Mrs. Piggle Wiggle, Harry Potter is a little old I think. . . but wanted to know what all you read to your kids? I want short chapters, good story line, easy to understand for a 6 year old. . . you guys got anything in mind?? Comment away!

Lions, Tigers, and Chicks oh my

2009-04-23T19:07:00.000-07:00

It's been a busy, fun week. First off was Maci's first Kindergarten Music Performance/Play. It was so cute. All the kindergarten classes sang a couple cute songs, and then did a little play of the Little Red Hen. Maci was one of the baby chicks, she had a couple little singing parts with the other chicks. It was so fun to see her up there singing her heart out. The pics didn't turn out too well, we were too far back. We were about 10 minutes early and ALL the seats were taken already, we ended up standing in the back. She did a fabulous job, as did all her little classmates.

This weekend we relaxed and got some stuff done. Maci had a soccer game, they won again and are undefeated! Then we got some yard work done and got some composte to put in the flower beds. It's free here! We got a lot done and it was a great Saturday.

This week has been busy, and it's started to get hot! It was about 85 today, and it felt it. I think we're in big trouble when it reaches 90-95 with the humidity. It hasn't been too humid yet, but I'm sure it's coming. Maci's school went to the zoo on Wednesday and Gavin and I tagged along. It was really fun. Gavin and I have been to the zoo, but it was Maci's first time. We enjoyed seeing all the animals, there was one giraffe in particular that was a little agressive and out of control! She had a great time with her friends and teacher, and we had fun seeing it with her. Gavin loves to be in the big kid mix, and Maci was really good about including him. Today i did library time at the school, and tomorrow I'm helping at a PTA dance in the evening, I'm feeling very involved in the school this week! Gearing me up for PTA next year.

Yesterday a friend also helped me make some freezer strawberry jam. It turned out really good! It was fun to feel a little domestic, something I'm trying to do more of. Thanks Maria for letting me mess up your kitchen! The kids had a ball and the product was fabulous.

I've done some orders this week too, I've been trying to balance crafts with every day life here for a while since I've gotten busier. I decided to only make and finish orders on Mondays and Tuesdays, and ship out Wednesdays. So any orders I get during the week, I wait till Monday to start in on them. It's been really good, and helped me balance work and life. Then I can put away my craft stuff during the rest of the week so it's not out all the time. I've also had a few 9 year old girls from the ward come over on Monday afternoons to play with the kids while I cut stuff out. That's been a great help too. I think I'm finally getting a schedule down that's working for all of us!

Chris is winding up his 2nd semester, and doing really great. He had a big presentation this week that went really well, and finals are coming up in a couple weeks. I'm so proud of how dedicated he's been to his school work and not procrastinating anything. He's totally on top of it all and really enjoying every moment of it. Work's going well for him too, we're really lucky to have this job that's so flexible and that he enjoys relatively well. We're so happy to be where we are and are so blessed in every part of our lives.

We're excited to be coming to UT around the 22nd of May. Hopefully we'll get to see lots of friends and family while we're there! Sorry this was such a long post, it was more for me than for all of you!

Oh last thing, YES we did get Gavin to cut his hair!! He just said one night, after the 100th time we asked him if it was ok, that sure, if he could watch whatever show he wanted to, we could cut his hair. So the next morning, we did it, and he was fine. Yeah!! It looks really cute. I love to rub his little head.

Gavin's Hair

2009-04-15T19:26:00.000-07:00

Yes, now that I look at all those pictures from Easter I realize how bad it really looks. Believe me, we've TRIED to cut it! Several times. But he throws such a fit, kicking, screaming, crying, we have yet to just hold him down and shave it, mostly because I'm afraid I'll cut him rather than the actual fit itself. We've tried bribes. We've tried asking him if he wants to cut just the sides, I know a mohawk is a little crazy but it would be better than this, we've asked him if he wants to go sit in a cool chair at Cookie Cutters, no dice. He says he wants it to grow up to the sky, which might happen if we don't do something soon! When we put gel in it it looks semi decent, but it usually only lasts a couple hours, if that. So what's a mom to do?! He's just too darn cute.

Same as everyone else's blog this week!

2009-04-15T17:09:00.000-07:00

We had a great Easter weekend. Chris's dad made a visit and we did a lot of fun things with him. On Friday, he and the kid and I visited a Civil War site, the Wilson's Creek Battlefield. It was very interesting and Don was in his element learning about the battle. It was very cold and rainy, so we had to make it kind of a short visit. Chris took off work a little early and we went and saw Monsters Vs Aliens, which of course the kids loved. It was a funny movie.
Saturday we started bright and early at an Easter Egg hunt put on by the city. It was more of a Dash than a hunt, but they split the kids into different age groups, so there were plenty of eggs for everyone and the kids had just enough candy. Then Maci had a soccer game, which they won 6-1. Maci was not feeling 100% due to a cold, but still played great. She got to be goaly for part of the game and saved 5 goals! She did great.
Saturday afternoon we went to Fantastic Caverns, "The only Drive Through Cave" in North America :) It was fun, we went with Grandma and Grandpa Boren when they were here, but Chris didn't get to go with us that time, and this time we saw 3 bats in the cave! I was a little freaked out by the bats, seeing as they were only about a foot from your head as you drove by. Icky.
We also got to go to the Dixie Stampede in Branson, something we hadn't done before. It was really fun, picture a Medieval Times but with the North and the South instead of the Red and Blue Knights. They had really cool horse maneuvers and different tricks and stuff with livestock, it was fun. They feed you dinner and you don't have any utensils, great fun. The food was really good though, fingerlicking good. The kids loved it.
We took him to Lamberts of course, and fed him some Buckingham's BBQ, and Andy's Frozen Custard. On Sunday we had a regional conference broadcast, and it was Easter. So we did the usual egg dying and such on Sat. night and did baskets Sunday morning. We tried to emphasize the true meaning of Easter all day long, we kept asking Maci why we celebrated, and she'd say, Because Jesus was Resurrected. It's so hard to keep the true spirit in mind with so many distractions, but I think we did pretty good.
Chris's dad left on Monday. We had a really good time with him and are glad he could come visit so we could show him around the Ozarks!

Nostalgia

2009-04-09T19:10:00.000-07:00

I'm a little homesick today for some reason. Maybe it's preparing for Easter for my kids, remembering baskets at my house filled with fabric instead of easter grass. My mom would always put in new tights, our favorite shampoo, a new hair clip, some bubbles or a little toy, and a Cadburry Egg, along with other candy. After spending a measly 8-9$ each on my kids baskets, I realized how much thought and effort she put into ours, remembering what our favorite things were. It's so funny how you look back on your childhood and remember little things that seem big now, and think "Am I making those memories for my kids?" I hope so, and I'm so glad my parents made those moments for me, even if they weren't trying to.

I'm also missing the yearly Easter Egg Hunt with all the bro's and sisters, and cousins. Maci's missing it too. But I guess sometimes you have to miss things to really appreciate them!

On another less nostalgic note, we had our first real tornado siren warning tonight. We've had warnings other storms but the sirens haven't gone off. Well tonight there were several sighted tornadoes in our area, one even in Nixa?! It rained and hailed quite a bit and lots of thunder and lightening. Our power didn't go out, and I doubt we were ever super close to one, but it was definitely an adrenaline rush! and a glimpse of what I'm sure we'll be in for for the next couple of years in the spring. We don't have a basement, so we've heard we're supposed to get in our bathtub and put a mattress over top of us. We didn't employ that tonight, but will try it out if we get wind one is headed our way again! What an adventure!
No I did not take this picture, I got it off the internet :-) this COULD have happened though!

Soccer Chick

2009-04-08T13:30:00.000-07:00

Maci had her first soccer game this last Saturday. Her team is the grey team and they chose to be the Sharks, very intimidating! It was soooo cold! and windy, but the kids toughed it out and did great. They won 6-2, but it's not all about winning right?! Maci played 3/4 of the game and got a few good kicks in there. She was not afraid to be in the mix and really played well. Magnet ball is very entertaining to watch! She's having fun and that's the best part about it.

Here's some pics of the girl in action!

I don't think this was a planned pose, but you never know with this girl?!

We also had an addition to our family this week. Chris has been looking for a hobby of sorts, a way to release some stress and tension from working and being in grad school, blah blah blah :) We tossed around a couple of ideas, but I brought up getting a reasonably small and affordable motorcycle. I know, what was I thinking?! But he's been wanting one ever since he sold his other one, which we probably should have just kept, and it would be a great way for him to unwind. So of course he jumped all over it since I suggested and and had one found on Craigslist within a couple days. We got it and he loves and and I am wife of the year now :) It turns out when you're really poor the government likes to give you money at tax time?! I really hate benefiting from socialism, but what ya gonna do? We're saving a good chunk of it, spending some on food storage, going to UT on some. . . thanks Government!

Easter Egg Giveaway

2009-04-01T22:04:00.000-07:00

Hey I'm doing a giveaway through a blog site, Frugal Mommy to 2 Girls. She does lots of fun giveaways, usually several a day! and all you have to do is go to people's sites, say what you like in their shops, then you're entered. Random winners or course. So if you'd like a chance to win this cute set of letters, head over to
http://frugalmommyof2girls.blogspot.com/2009/04/allys-attic-easter-week.html
and leave a comment! The rules are all there on the site. I think it's open till the 8th.
Thanks guys! It'd be fun if someone I KNEW won!

Brand Name vs Generic

2009-03-30T15:10:00.000-07:00

So this is a poll for all you mom's out there. As my clothes get dingier and my floor is harder to clean, I keep wondering if it's worth it to pay for the more expensive things in life, ie Clorox and Mr. Clean. What brands do you guys think it's worth paying full price for? I general buy store brand food, and I don't notice a big difference in that most of the time, but I'm wondering if cleaning products, especially detergent, would be worth paying full price for. So chime in, I need my clothes to last!!

Meet Me in St. Louis

2009-03-24T20:54:00.000-07:00

It's Spring Break! and here in MO that's a WHOLE WEEK! We wanted to go to Nauvoo, but the timing just didn't work out. It's about a 7 hour drive, and we could only be gone 2-3 days, Chris has a ton of assignments to do for school and his boss needed him to work some extra hours this week as well. So we decided to do Nauvoo another time, and just take a short trip up to St. Louis. We stayed at a nice hotel, swam twice in the pool, went to the St. Louis Zoo, which is FREE! :) and went to the Gateway Arch in Downtown. We also walked down to the mighty Mississippi, Maci was quite impressed. We ate lots of yummy food, and had a great time as a family. Here's some pics of our adventure.

Maci is out the rest of this week, we're hoping to go to Silver Dollar City if the weather will cooperate. It's supposed to be rainy the rest of the week. Maci was sick 3 days last week with a really nasty virus, so she's going to have a hard time going back to school next week after so much time off! It's been fun to have her home for a while.

Life flashing before my eyes

2009-03-13T00:03:00.000-07:00

So I got this new computer and I just transfered all my stuff from my old one. I just did my pictures, and it needs to upload them to your new iPhoto. So I'm sitting here staring at all these pictures of my life from the last 7 years. In fast forward motion, from start to finish. What a great life I have! What wonderful friends, family, husband, and kids. We've all grown up so much, not just the kids but Chris and I too. It makes me proud to look back at where we've come from to where we are now. And I love seeing all those familiar faces, sisters, best friends, grandma's and grandpa's, little babies. This is the stuff that matters, and I'm glad I have so much of it. Anyway, at 2 in the morning, this is what I'm thinking about :) Life is good.

Lion's, Tigers, and Soccer, Oh My

2009-03-12T07:02:00.000-07:00

We had a fun week last week, BUSY! but fun. I'm trying to get caught up on my craft stuff, I think I'm finally there, but got a couple orders yesterday and have an enrichment for my ward next week. Just when I think I'm caught up! I've sent out 15 boxes in the last 6 days, not too shabby! It's really blessing our family, so I can't complain about the time. Lots of late nights, but sometimes I can't sleep anyway so might as well get some painting done, right?

So besides painting stuff, Gavy and I went to the Dickerson Park Zoo with some friends last week. We had gorgeous weather last week, in the 70s mostly! but it's plummeted back down this week back into the 30s, rgggh Spring. The Zoo was pretty good, the kids had a great time and the mom's had fun chatting. Gavin really wanted to see a lion with "big hair", but they only had mommy lions. He was kind of disappointed, but still had a fun time with his girlfriends. He's one of 2 boys in his sunbeam class, seems like all our little friends his age are girls! He keeps saying he wants a friend that's a boy :( He's already working the ladies at this young age!

Who knew Iron Man visited the zoo so often?!

Maci also had an exciting thing. On Monday she started soccer! We'd decided to take her out of dance, seemed like they were doing the same thing week after week and it was about 20 min. away, and to be in the recital was 130$???? and none of her little friends were doing the recital either because it was too expensive, so we decided to try something new. She was so excited to start practice, her coach called and let us know when it would be and she could not stop talking about it. We got her a little ball and cool tall socks, a neighbor let us borrow some shin guards. She looked so cute all dressed in her garb! She was a little nervous for her first practice but did a great job! Her coach was really great at motivating the kids and showing them how to do it right if they were a little lost, but in a very positive way. She made great improvements just during the 1hr practice. She's very excited about her first game on the 28th. I'm proud of her for trying something new and trying her best. Way to go, soccer chick!!

Nuttin' Much

2009-02-27T12:23:00.000-08:00

So we haven't been up to too much lately. I've been really busy with craft stuff, Chris has midterms next week, Gavin's hanging out with me in craft business training, and Maci's pluggin away at school. I got a nasty cold this week that put me out of commission for a couple days, but I think I'm almost 100% now. I did get a fabulous new laptop, with proceeds from our tax refund. My little mini was WAY low on RAM, and it would take me minutes to do what takes seconds now with my 2gb of RAM on my laptop. I got the lowest end Macbook, but it's a great little machine, I LOVE it, it's so fast. I know, we're so spoiled these days! But it has improved my productivity, that was my justification, and selling a few things on Craig's List too. So if you're in the market for a Mac Mini, let me know, I've got one to spare!

This weekend, Thurs-Mon, we're watching some friends kids while they're in FL. They have 4, the oldest is 9, youngest is 10 mo. So it's been an adventure so far! The kids have been really good and no major catastrophe's yet. I did have to drive the baby around in the car last night to get him to go to sleep. . . We're staying at their house, since it's a little bigger than ours and we don't have beds for everyone. I honestly don't know how people have more than 4 kids! I think I could handle 4, that's our goal to get 4, but all you out there with more than that, hats off to you! You have nerves of steal and energy for a marathon. It's been fun to have a baby for a while too, you forget how much you forget! until you're thrown back into it. But it's been fun. So it's Fri, have 3.5 days left, we'll see if we all survive!! Have a great weekend, all.

Vday Fun

2009-02-16T13:58:00.000-08:00

We had a great Valentine's Day. One of the best I can remember actually! No Chris did not wisk me away on some romantic getaway, although that would have been nice, in fact we didn't even do presents this year, we just spent time as a family and had a great day. Chris started out by cutting out 12 sets of Spring letters for an enrichment thing in our ward, which was a HUGE deal for me, I was getting overwhelmed by the prospects of cutting that many out and he just took up the job and did it all for me. He did 5 more this morning in fact before he went to school. What a sweetie! Seriously the best Vday present I could have asked for. Then we ran some errands, Home Depot, the Dollar Store for the kids, then we came home and made heart shaped pizza's and had Sparkling Grape Juice in our "fancy" glass goblets. We ate by candelight and just had a great time. Chris and I watched Ghost Town, pretty funny movie actually. It was just a perfect family day, no froof or frill needed. Maybe next year ;)

My 5 year old is 6!

2009-02-16T13:37:00.000-08:00

Maci's birthday was Feb. 12th. We had such a fun day! She started off by going to school, with poster in hand all about her, what she likes, who's in her family, etc. She got to share this with the class. They didn't have school on Friday, so the Valentine's Day party was that day. She said it was a party for her though :) I usually go into the library with her on Thursdays, but they had the party during that time, so I got to go help all the kids go from station to station at the party. It was fun, I really enjoy seeing Maci in her element at school. We made rice crispy treats cut out in heart shapes to share with her class. Unfortunately, the schedule was busy that day and they didn't have "snack" time in the afternoon, so her teacher forgot to hand them out! They had plastic wrap over them so maybe they'll keep till today, we'll see.

We decided to let Maci have a sleepover with her 3 best friends from the ward, Emily, Emma, and Lilly. These 4 go to dance together and are just best buds. Luckily they did have school off on Friday so we could have the party on her actual birthday. We ate spaghetti and breadsticks, which is her favorite dinner, and had a My Little Pony cake, (thanks again Anne!). We let the girls decorate crowns, and just hang out and play. They had a blast, went to bed at a decent hour, but woke up at 4:30am! and would not go back to sleep. Now I know why most parents hate sleepovers! They had such a great time though and I'm glad Maci got to spend her birthday how she wanted to.

She got some great presents from all the family back home, so thank you Grandma's and Grandpa's Boren and Ward!! She loved it all and has played with it all already. We took her to the store on Friday to spend her birthday money from Gma and Gpa Boren, she loved getting to pick whatever she wanted, but had a hard time choosing!

Here's a few things about Maci (so I'll remember when she's old ;) )
She loves to draw and color, paint and craft
Her favorite food is spaghetti, but she's not a very picky eater. She loves fruit and veggies!
Her favorite thing to play is Barbies and Dress-up
I love hearing her play with her friends, they have great imaginations!
Her favorite Board Game is Leap Frog Bingo, we play it ALL the time!
She is an excellent student and stays "on task" at school. She's reading at a
1st grade level already!
She is very friendly and makes friends easily
She's very passionate about things, some might say dramatic??
She loves to laugh and often gets the uncontrollable giggles
She's a great helper, and loves to help me cook especially
She loves her brother, even though he causes said drama on occasion
She is a daddy's girl
She's started to take showers recently, and loves to stay in there for as long as I'll let her
and loves singing in the shower.
She is a girly girl through and through. She loves getting dressed up, wearing jewelry and
doing her hair in a special way. She'll get dressed up if we say we're going out to dinner!

She is by far my favorite Daughter in the whole world! Love you Maci!

Worm Gender

2009-02-11T18:16:00.000-08:00

So it's been raining a lot here lately, and there's lots of worms out. Gavin was spotting them out in the driveway and yelled to me in the house, "Come here quick Mommy!" so I dashed outside. He pointed to a long worm and said he wanted to touch it. It was down in a crack so we couldn't get to it (thank goodness). Then he excitedly said he thought it was a girl worm. I asked him how he could tell it was a girl worm. He said "Because it looks like it has long hair Mommy"! I was relieved that this was his distinction between girls and boys, at least for another few years. I know I should be teaching him about correct body parts and all that, but I love that he's still young and innocent!

This was good timing, because just yesterday I was thinking that I never remember the funny things my kids say, and even questioning if they do indeed say funny things?! So I'm glad they still do and that I remembered to write it down today at least.

I've been struggling with how to "enjoy" my mommy moments, instead of always wishing to have a moment to myself. Everyone tells you the time goes too fast, and to enjoy every moment with your kids. But it seems like us women have a really hard time doing that! We always want what we can't have, now when our kids are young we don't enjoy them enough, and I know once they're old and grown I'll be pining for the good ole days when I was up to my neck in laundry and making school lunch every day. So how do we slow down and just enjoy what we're doing NOW?! I have days where I do enjoy it, and I love my kids to death, don't get me wrong, but there are days when I'm tired of everything a young family involves. I vented to my mom last night after she called and read me a journal entry of the weeks after I was born, and what a connection we had even in those first precious days. It made me bawl, in a good way of course, and just hope that I will look back on the days I'm living now with fond memories and forget all the laundry and the dishes and the school posters to be made. I just need to be sure to make those good memories, and not get lost in all the every day stuff. So thanks for letting me vent here again, I always love it when I hear other moms talking about this kind of stuff, so I know I'm not alone in my guilt! Hopefully I'm not alone here, but even if I am, at least I fessed up to it and wrote it down for Maci to read some day when she's overwhelmed by her 2 kids. Agggh the thought!!

Lament of the Grungy Galley Floor

2009-02-02T13:14:00.000-08:00

Oohhh kitchen floor, why doest thou punish me! With your vast sea of filthy vinyl that needs to be swept, scrubbed, and scoured far too often? Your immenseness is daunting to me, time and time again.

Alright, enough of that. The Thesaurus website is giving me trouble :) But seriously, I hate cleaning my floor!! And therefore, it does not get cleaned enough. But this Sat. it was my one thing I really wanted to get done, so I did it. Any my triceps are feeling it still today, 2 days later. But it looked nice, for a day :)

We also taught Maci how to vacuum the floor "properly" in hopes to have that as one of her regular Saturday jobs. I've been horrible at giving my kids jobs on a regular basis, mostly because I know it would be faster for me to do it myself. But she's old enough now, and Gavin too, that she can do things on her own in a fairly competent manner, even if it does take a little longer. They also washed the glass on all the doors and windows that were low enough for them to reach. My little cleaning crew is blossoming!

Chris's job he wanted to get done was to paint some walls that have needed it since we moved in, but didn't get done due to painting exhaustion. But we rallied our little troops and got it done on Sat. They look SOOO much better, even though they were freshly painted (with completely matte paint) when we moved in, they still look so much brighter with the yellow on them instead of sterile white. It's amazing how not bright white can look after a while, in my opinion. Now we just have to do the halls and a couple walls in our room and the kids rooms, and most of the matte white will be covered up. Another weekend down the line. . .

Weathered the Storm

2009-01-30T09:05:00.000-08:00

So we had our first Missouri ice storm this last week. We were kind of excited! and I told the lady at Walmart that when I was buying our provisions, and of course she thought I was crazy. The last two years they've had horrible ice storms, with power out for days, if not weeks, trees breaking everywhere, bad bad stuff. So no one here was excited for it! But we wanted to see what all the hubbub was about. So we filled our propane tanks, made sure our gas fireplace was working, got plenty of necessity food, i.e. chips, ice cream (it'll keep in the snow), and fruit snacks, and hunkered down for the storm. It was pretty fun to keep running to the window to see what the weather was doing, freezing rain is an interesting thing to see, hear, watch. It's like rain, but frozen! :-) in little droplets, and freezes again when it hits anything. It coats everything, the roads, power lines, trees, grass blades, Chris had fun taking shots of it the next morning. It's very beautiful, but very dangerous. If the power lines get more than about 1/2" of coating, they sag and snap. Trees often snap as well onto the power lines and cause outages. Nobody goes anywhere after an ice storm. Maci's school was cancelled for 3 days! But we never lost power and have been fine, besides trying to keep the kids occupied! We got about 3 inches of snow on top of the ice, so the kids had fun playing in that, although it is NOT the greatest snow on earth. Anyway, I'm glad to say our first ice storm is behind us, although I doubt it will be our last.

A Great Day Off

2009-01-23T07:08:00.000-08:00

I totally meant to get this post up much sooner, but this week has been crazy! with a cold, about 10 orders to fill, and just general family business, or busyness. . . but here it is a little late.

We had a fantastic 3 day weekend last week. On Saturday we headed down to Branson to the 4th annual Ice Scupltur Contest at the Titanic Museum. It was free :-) And actually fun to see how creative people are and the kind of tools they use to cut the ice. I leaned over to Chris as they broke up their mega Dremel tool and said, "I could get into this!" but I think I'll stick to wood for now. Maci's favorite was the Pegasus Unicorn, and Gavy liked a cool Gecko. The weather was really warm and windy, probably around 50 degrees, which is warm when you're carving a block of ice, so the competitors were struggling with that. But it was still really fun to watch. We didn't stick around to see who won. We took off to the outlet malls instead! I got a new pair of tennis shoes, mine were 7 years old and had holes in them, and of course I had to stop at the Children's Place and check out their deals. I got lots of stuff for Maci and Gavin for next fall at killer prices. Anyway, it was a perfect "vacation" day and we had a great time.

On Monday, we told the kids we could go to the Children's Discovery Center, we bought an annual pass so we can go whenever we want. It's a great science center and the kids love going. We got to do a couple things we haven't had a chance to do before, they let us light a lightbulb with our fingers when we touched the globe thing with the electric currents running through it? I'm sure that makes no sense. And then the thing that makes your hair all static-y and you can shock people when you get off it, anyway those were fun things we haven't done before. We walked around there for an hour or so, and then went to Lamberts for Lunch, where they throw the rolls. Yummo rolls. Then we went home to tackle some house stuff.
This is like a hamster wheel that creates energy when you run on it, I think we'll get one installed to run the washer and dryer!

Walking on the "keystone"

I've been working on my craft room since we moved in, but have never gotten it completely functional and "done". Well I think I'm about 75% there now, which is closer than before! It was in a complete state of disaster, with boxes and bins everywhere, stacked, unstacked, you couldn't even walk in the room for the most part. So we really wanted an Ikea piece with about 9 shelf boxes on it, so all my stuff could have its own compartment. But seeing as the shipping was as much as the piece, and we didn't want to wait till summer to get it cleaned up so we could buy it in UT and drive it home, we decided to make our own, less fancy but just as functional piece. Chris made me some shelves and we just put them on brackets. We got a ton of rubbermaids, all the same sizes and colors so they matched and looked nice. We got them up and filled on Monday and it looks SO much better! I even have room and bins to spare, so I can buy even more stuff! Just kidding. But it feels good to have a functional space, now I just have to keep it that way. There's one wall that still needs to be painted, and has space for a crib someday when we have another baby. It sucks the baby will have to share the craft room, but he/she won't mind for the first couple years I don't think!

So that was our fun and exciting weekend. It was the perfect combination of fun and productiveness, family time, and togetherness! Now that Chris is back in school, we take those weekends when we can get them!

My Little Man!

2009-01-14T07:35:00.000-08:00

So there was one more important development during Christmas Break, Gavy got somewhat potty trained!! Thanks to Grandma Sharon for some needed motivation and a small potty seat so he wouldn't fall in! He's pretty much done with diapers during the day, and even most nights wakes up dry, which I'm so relieved about, as I've heard that a lot of boys have trouble with not waking up and having accidents. Gavin must have a bladder of steel, he can hold it all day! or maybe he's not drinking enough? but he can go in the morning, and then not go again until like 4 pm? crazy. I'll ask him all day, do you need to go? and he says, no Mommy, I'm holding it! and he calls it "I did my water Mommy!" he's so proud of himself. Poops are another story, seems like all kids have trouble pooping on the potty! But I don't want him to start holding them in, we did that with Maci and it was a horrible painful three months till we could convince her it wasn't so scary after all. Anyway, we're working on #2, so to speak, and hopefully in a month or so be diaper free!!

I'm also struggling with naptime with Gavin. He'll still take naps pretty willingly, but ever since we got home from our trip, if he takes a nap, he's up till like 10pm. We'll put him to bed at 8, and he'll mess around, talk, sing, play, whatever until he finally falls asleep. This keeps Maci up though, and gets us frustrated with his constant coming out of bed to say he's not tired and can't sleep. So do I give up my 2 hrs of quiet during the day for an easier bedtime??!?!?!? I really can't decide. Have any of you tackled this problem? if I only let him sleep an hour will he go to bed better? Most days he gets really grumpy by the end of the night if he doesn't have a nap, which is why I've still been giving him one, but maybe he just needs to go to bed at like 7? I don't think that will happen either. I'm at a loss, but don't want to give up my hour of quiet!! Any advice from you seasoned moms out there?

I haven't gotten a pic of Gavin on the potty, but this bath one was cute I took the other day. The kids each got bath soaps and toys for Christmas, and Gavin's came with shaving cream soap. I walked out of the bathroom for a minute, and came back to both of them with huge handfulls of cream. I told them to put it to good use and at least let me take a picture of them! Cute kids.

10 favorite things from UT

2009-01-12T13:15:00.000-08:00

So we had a fantastic trip to UT. We arrived safely on the 16th, even if it was a couple hours late due to a sensor on the plane malfunctioning. We headed off on a 3 week whirlwind of friends, family, parties, Christmas, snow, and FUN!! Here were a few of our favorite things on our trip.

10. Decorated trees at Grandma Reesa's and Great Grandma Cleo's.

9. Played ShuffleBoard, Horseshoes, and swimming (even if it was a little cold!) at the Condo in St. George with Grandma and Todd

8. Let Missy pull the kids on the sleds.

7. Went caroling with the Boren clan.

6. Saw friends and caught up on the last 4 months.

5. Played with cousins!

4. Got to know Uncle Todd again, he was a good sport in the wrestling department!

3. Seeing Comet and Blitzen, thanks to Todd, at Thanksgiving Point.

2. Going sledding in Cedar Hills w/Katie and Brett!

1. Having the Best Christmas Ever with ALL! our family and friends.

Thank you all for making our Christmas Vacation such a great time. I'm sorry we didn't get to see all of you, we hope in the summer when there isn't a big holiday to schedule in, we'll have more time to spread around. We had such a great time though and it was great to be back in UT for a while. We did miss home though, and find it nice to be back in a routine and actually accomplishing a task during the day instead of just eating and having fun!

Since we've been back we've just been cleaning the house, cutting out lots of orders!, getting back to school for Maci, Chris is working full time for a couple weeks before school starts, and basically just getting back into the swing of things.

One more brag, Chris got 4 A's and 1 B his first semester of grad school, and got on the Dean's List! I'm so proud of him and how hard he's working. He's really enjoying it too, and that's the best part!

So TTFN, until something exciting happens?!

An Early Visitor!

2008-12-15T06:08:00.000-08:00

We're heading out for UT tomorrow!! and due to limited space in our suitcases, we let Santa know that he may need to make an early appearance at our house! So the kids wrote letters and asked for their things, and let him know we'd be in UT on Christmas Day. He wrote back and said that he was going to bring their "big" presents a little early so we didn't have to pack them home in our suitcases. So he came on Sat. morning, bright and early as promised. He even ate the cookies and milk we left and Rudolph snarfed up the carrots. We had a fun time, even if the kids were still a little confused at the small amount of presents they received, only 2 each. We kept having to say, you're getting some more in UT, not a lot more, but SOME more. . . I think it finally sunk in. Maci got an oversized Barbie doll, that she has dressed up several times already, and a new 2 wheeled scooter. Gavin got a remote control 4 wheeler and an Iron Man Big Wheel, so he doesn't have to use Maci's old Barbie one anymore ;-) They were both thrilled with their gifts and have played with them a lot already. I'm not sure why Maci looks drugged in all these pics, I think I need to NOT say, 1,2,3 cheese?! or something.

After the big wind up of Santa and the toys, it was apparent that Maci was NOT feeling well, she had said the night before that she was feeling sick and she had a pretty high fever that we were treating with Tylenol. So when it got up to 102.7 we decided we better take her in. There's an Urgent Care really close to here, I haven't set us up with a Pediatrician yet, stupid I know, so we went to the Urgent Care first. I get there and the lady at the front desk says, Oh, you have a child? the Dr. on call today doesn't "do" kids." I was like, WHAT?! I guess they really have a no pediatrics on the weekends policy, but if a pediatric Dr. is working, then sometimes he'll take kids. But I was flabergasted that there would be any urgent care that didn't take kids at all?!? very weird!! So I had to drive all the way into Springfield, and then when I got to the "Pediatric" urgent care, they take appointments, so the earliest I could get was 2 hours later. Do we wait? Do we drive home to stay for an hour and drive back? We chose the latter. . . but at least next time we'll know that we can call in advance, which is actually nice so you don't have to sit there waiting for 2 hours which we HAVE done at an IHC instacare. So anyway, she has strep, and I'm kinda glad because at least we can give her medicine that will actually help and make it go away. Gav, Maci and I all caught the stomach bug last week, it has not been a good health month! But she's feeling much better today and went to school for her last day before we leave. I'm hoping no one else gets it, but if they do at least we'll know what it is! So that's my first experience with the MO health services. The Dr. was actually really great and I'm considering signing up with him just because he was so nice. But we'll probably go with someone closer here in Nixa. Sorry to bore you with that story but I was just so frustrated that day!

So here's fun pics of the kids toys. See some of you SOON!!!

Ginberbread House

2008-12-09T06:06:00.000-08:00

We took a crack at decorating a gingerbread house tonight for FHE. We had intentions of doing it this weekend so Chris could do it with us, but the weekend got filled up somehow! So we decided to do it tonight even though Chris was studying. Gavin had been feeling icky tonight, throwing up several times. Maci had this a couple nights ago. Well I thought he was feeling better, they were running around wrestling and stuff, so we decided to start in on the house. Well. . . he wasn't feeling better, and had several more bouts while we were decorating the house. You can see his progression as he starts to feel worse and worse, poor little guy. He made it through the night pretty well, and only was up twice, but it was still while Chris and I were up thank goodness. I think he's feeling much better this morning, hopefully we'll have a "clean" day! The house turned out cute though, thanks to Maci finishing it off for us!

Our Stake here does a BIG Nativity Celebration that's open to the public for two weeks on the weekends. It's a big deal here, and a great missionary opportunity. They have a live nativity outside for part of it, with sheep and horses and everything, and then they have a display of over 1000 nativities in the cultural hall. On all the evenings for about an hour they have one of the big Branson acts come and play. All of the 6 acts that played here are LDS members, there's a big group of them down there in Branson which is pretty cool I think. So I signed up to help with refreshments on Sunday, and then the kids and Chris joined me at 6 to here the group play from Branson. It was so fun! and really got me in the spirit of Christmas. The group was great, and played very appropriate Sabbath Day Christmas Songs, some with guitar and piano accompaniment and some just Accapella. Anyway, it was really great and they had the best turnout they've ever had. This is their 10th year. I think this last Sat. night they said they had over 800 people just at the performance part! So it's a great missionary experience and hopefully some of those people will be back to see what we're all about! I'm glad we got to experience it this year, and many more to come.

A couple weeks late

2008-12-05T20:30:00.000-08:00

So I'm behind, I know! My friend says she's a bulimic blogger, I think that aptly describes me as well, at least lately. I have lots of great stories and intentions to write them, but then never actually sit down and do it, and then have to "purge" them all out at once. So here we are with 2 weeks to catch up on, with one major holiday among them! Here goes. . .

We had a great Thanksgiving. We invited our friends the Winter's over and had a great spread. It was actually fun and quite fulfilling to make some, even if not all, of a full Thanksgiving meal. I made the turkey, sweet potatoes, mashed potatoes, and green bean caserole. Janessa made the rolls, fruit salad, and dessert. We had enough food to feed about 20 people probably, but it fed the 7 of us just fine, with plenty of leftovers :) We talked for a while, let the kids play, just generally had a nice leisurely afternoon. Chris put up the Christmas lights earlier in the day and even mowed the lawn one last time. It was a balmy 60+ degrees, really nice weather.

We went and saw Bolt after dinner, the new Disney film out. It was REALLY funny, much better than I thought it would be. I hadn't heard much about it but I guess you don't have to publicize Disney movies much, if they make it, you will come. But go take your kids to this one if you haven't seen it yet, I thought it was better than Madagascar 2, and didn't have some of the "adult" jokes in it that M2 did.

So Turkey day was a success, even if I did really miss going out with Chris's family or eating around a huge table with 30 people with my family. But when in Rome. . . We hope for many more wonderful MO Thanksgivings.

This last week we've had our first bit of "snow". It was really cold, and now I can see why they get freezing rain here. The roads got suuuuper slick, and Chris saw loads of accidents on his way to work, even though it had only snowed about 1/2". It just freezes as soon as it hits the ground. So Gavin really wanted to make a snowman, so we got bundled up and attempted with what little snow we had. It did feel good to get our hands in some white stuff though.

The kids trying to scrape all the snow that had collected against the fence, into snowballs.

Frosty ain't got nuttin on this guy.

Maci was sick this week and missed 2 days of school. She had a stomach bug, and it has been going around, lots of friends have been sick as well. Luckily none of the rest of us picked it up, yet. Chris is winding down the semester and getting ready for finals starting the 15th. He's really excited to be finishing up his 1st semester of grad school! I decided to close down the booth in Branson, the fee was too high for how much I was selling, and the Etsy business is going pretty well so I think I'll focus on that and branch out a bit more. I might attempt a few craft fairs this next year as well. I had an open house today to get rid of some of the inventory, it went pretty well. I still have lots of tiles w/vinyl, so if any of you need a cheap Christmas present, let me know! If you're in UT I'll pack it in my suitcase for you ;)

Chris and I just went on an actual date tonight! It was very fun, we went out with our friends the Eckersley's and had a great time. We went to Panera, a really good bread and bagel store that sells sandwhiches too, kinda like Einstein's? We saw Quantum of Solace which we hadn't seen yet, it was very good, very James Bondish, I think I'll have to watch it twice more to get the full story behind all the action. But it felt good to go out and have fun, and get to know our friends a little better. So I think that catches us up for the week! Hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving.

Trim the Tree

2008-11-26T13:40:00.000-08:00

We put up the tree on Sunday, we had a great time! My mom used to get us little kits of ornaments to make, or come up with a fun craft to make an ornament, and she says she's not crafty. I loved this and looked forward to it every year. Some great ornaments came out of it as well, and no matter how ugly they were, we ALWAYS hung them on the tree, year after year. We'd laugh about the really bad ones every year as we got them out of the ornament box. Who can forget the African American Santa, the lovely shrinky dinks, and the salt dough bells and stars. I loved that tradition, so I started doing it with my kids too. We didn't do anything specific last year but the kids helped me put ribbons on some plain balls to dress them up. This year I asked Maci what she wanted to do and she chose silver balls, a package of foam Christmas shapes, and glitter. As long as it has glitter on it Maci's all over it. So the kids painted, stuck, and glittered their ornaments. And we hung the ALL on the tree, no matter if they were technically pretty or not, and I'm just fine with that. We had a great time, and made scones afterwards. This was my first attempt at scones, and they turned out really good! We've decided to make scones a Christmas Tree decorating tradition. We invited Angelita and her kids over to enjoy the huge batch of scones, I still only made half a batch but that is a TON! and we had a lovely evening chatting while the kids played. The rest of the Christmas stuff hasn't made it out of the bins yet, maybe this weekend. . .

She was more excited about this, I promise. She's already got the teenage blah look going.

Twilight Zone

2008-11-23T14:05:00.000-08:00

So I went to the Midnight showing of Twilight, kinda unlike me considering I am NOT fanatical about these books. . . but we had a RS craft thing earlier that night and the girl hosting thought it would be fun to go afterwards, which it was. We made a lovely wreath, and then headed off to the show. First off, we were probably 7 out of the 15 people over the age of 21. I suddenly felt very old! Gratefully they let us into the theater and not in the lobby or outside. I guess people had been in the theater since like 8pm? and waiting in the lobby since 1pm. Harry Potter, I can see that for, but Twilight?? How they could afford to do this and not show other movies on the screen I do not know. Anyway, we ate too much popcorn, drank WAY too much soda, and had some laughs before the movie started. I thought the movie was good, but didn't live up to all the hype, which happens with too many movies these days I think. The cheeziness was beyond belief, but I kinda expected that. The overall story was pretty accurate, which is always good, and the special effects were very Bionic Man. I'm glad I went and saw it, it was a fun movie, and I had a really great night. So what did all you guys think?

Not Much Happenin'

2008-11-19T06:59:00.000-08:00

Just thought I'd write a quick post about what's happening, or not happening at our house the last couple weeks. We've just been hanging around for the most part, doing laundry, washing dishes, playing Leapfrog Bingo (the kid's favorite game), reading books, that's about it! Chris has been writing papers and studying for tests, the kids and I drove around looking for Christmas lights the other night to give him an hour of quiet time. We found 15 houses with Christmas lights, mostly all in one neighborhood. We probably drove around for a good hour. I thought that there would be more, frankly. I guess Missourians are all for the Christmas lights AFTER Thanksgiving tradition, which is fine by me. You wouldn't know it by what's in the stores though, most of the Christmas stuff was up a couple weeks before Halloween?! and while we were in Branson a couple weeks ago they had Santa and Mrs. Claus strolling about, which I thought was VERY early. We don't have our lights up yet, but plan to put them and the tree up this weekend, seeing as we'll be leaving here on the 16th to go to UT. We gotta get at least 3 weeks of tree time in?! So anyway, nothing too exciting has been going on. We ARE going to Chucky Cheese today for a Bday party, so maybe I'll take some pics and post those. TTFN

Fun Giveaway Sign up NOW!

2008-11-10T12:05:00.000-08:00

Hey guys, my Etsy site is being featured on a fun women's blog called iLash girls. It's a fun blog written by women, for women, that has fun product reviews, uplifting interviews, all kinds of great stuff to keep us motivated and entertained as women. They're giving away a set of my Harvest blocks as a promotion, so go sign up and you could win!! Check them out here

http://ilashgirls.com/surprise-giveaway-fun-fall-home-decor-2/

All you have to do is leave a comment on the giveaway page and they'll choose a random winner. It could be you! Thanks guys, good luck!

A Few Things I've learned this week

2008-11-08T17:07:00.000-08:00

So it's been a LOOONG week, for several reasons, the main one Chris being gone. Here's a few things I've learned this week.

1. I could not be a single mother, don't know how people do it.

2. I could not have a husband that travels for work. Again, don't know how you guys do it?! There's a few benefits, like keeping the house in a somewhat disastrous state, something I try not to do when Chris is home, and not really caring what I look like, what meals taste like, etc. Some say I'd get used to it if I had to do it, I beg to differ. Even though he's at school a lot, I still get to talk to him when he gets home, whenever that is, and snuggle with him on the couch, and just have another person to wage the war with. So I'm so glad I do miss him, and that he does not travel for work, and never will if I can help it!!

3. It DOES get cold in Missouri. And it IS a different kind of cold, just like it's a different kind of hot. The Fall has been so mild here, perfect fall weather, I was almost fooled into thinking the winters wouldn't be too bad, even though we've heard plenty of stories otherwise. But I've lived in UT my whole life! I should be tough enough for a few ice storms. Well, I'm starting to wonder. . . it was FREEZING today, it only got up to 40 and the guy on the weather said with the wind chill it felt like 25, and it's like a bone chilling cold. I think Mom and Dad can relate, kinda like NZ I think. Even though it doesn't snow very much, and definitely doesn't pile up like it does in UT, you get the cold without the beauty of the snow. Anyway, we definitely need to get out our HEAVY coats and gloves, and bundle up for a cold, even if not long, Missouri winter.

4. I HATE that it feels like midnight at 6:00pm. Why does this throw me so much every year? It seems like I get used to it after a couple weeks, hopefully that will be the case again. Rgghgh

5. Maybe it's cause of the election that the week has felt so long. Thank goodness it is finally over, even if I was a little disappointed. The world hasn't ended yet ;) I hope he does well, even if I don't agree with all his theoretical policies. We'll see how many he puts into practice. . .

6. I tend to spend money when Chris is not around. Yet another reason he should get home soon :)

7. You can get some killer costumes at the Disney store the week after Halloween. (Hence what I was spending money on, but I'm really SAVING since they were such good deals) Maci and Gavin better want to be Belle and a Red Power Ranger next year, or else. 10$ for a 40$ costume was sweet!!

8. I need breaks from my kids. As much as I love them, I have not been a very good happy Mom the last couple days. We've tried to fill the time with lots of fun things, but somehow that seems to have made them even crabbier at each other and hence I get crabbier at them. Maybe we all need a good long nap. . . . ah Sundays.

9. I miss quoting movies and TV shows. I did this a lot with my family, especially my sisters, and here I feel like no one will get the joke, so I don't say them out loud. I IMed my sister Katie the other night about my withdrawals. She humored me and typed a few of her favorites, although it wasn't quite the same. Thanks anyway though Kate.

I should be able to come up with 10, to round it off, but I think that's all the rambling for now. Sorry there's no pics, nothing too exciting happening. Maybe I can catch Belle and the Red Ranger around tomorrow.

No Fair

2008-11-06T20:31:00.000-08:00

Chris is in UT this weekend for his brother Todd's Homecoming. NO FAIR!!! But welcome home Todd, wish the rest of us could be there, but we'll give you a hug at Christmas. So I'm here bored and lonely and tired but not wanting to go to sleep in an empty bed :( So I'm surfing the net instead! Wish I had more exciting things to write, but I'll say TTFN

Halloween 2008

2008-11-03T06:59:00.000-08:00

We had a great Halloween. We carved pumpkins a couple nights before Halloween, the kids wanted to paint theirs as well. Maci's is quite colorful! Maci dressed up like Aleena from the Barbie Movies for school, they were supposed to dress up as someone with "good character" and were not allowed to wear "halloween" costumes?! so she couldn't wear her Witch costume. I was ok with that, I wouldn't want to see Freddie Kreuger at her school either. And it was not a Halloween party they had, it was a Fall party. They're very PC which is weird, but understandable I guess. . . Anyway she had a good time at her party at school.

We went to our friend's house to trick or treat, they have a lot of younger families on their streets and we wanted to go with friends, it's always more fun that way. We went with the Dunakey's, Petersen's, and Eckersley's. It was really fun. All the kids had very creative costumes and had a great time running from house to house. The parents had a hard time keeping up! They got a load of candy, and I was impressed with the quality, none of this All Dum Dums and Smarties and Rock Hard Bubble Gum, we're talking Snickers, Milky Way, Butterfinger, the good stuff!! And of course Maci is allergic to PB so I HAD to get rid of those ones for her ;)

So now we have way too much candy around. . . my friend has a website with some great ideas on how to get rid of the extra candy. www.meckmom.com Check it out, it's a really fun website with tons of great organization and mom friendly advice. Hope you all had a great Halloween! from all the posts it sure looks like it. Now we're on to an even scarier adventure, POTTY TRAINING!!!!! AGGGGG!

We had 3 witches flying through the air

Super Cool Spider Man. Gavin switched between Spiderman and Batman, I'd made him a Batman shirt and we got some gloves, but the day before he decided he still wanted to be Spiderman. We painted his face really cool, that was his favorite part.

Out of Towners

2008-10-29T11:41:00.000-07:00

My parents came to visit! We had such a great time, and it was so good to see a really familiar face or two. We did lots of fun things, showed the around Nixa and the Springfield area, ventured down to Branson for a day, and did a lot of talking along the way. It made me somewhat more homesick the rest of this week, after they left, but I'm glad they got to see where we are and that we love it here and are doing fine. So thanks for making the LONG drive here just to stay for 3 days guys, it was worth it, for me :) Here's a few pics from their visit.

Branson Landing where they have a fountain show similar to the one at the Belagio in Vegas. The kids couldn't help it and splashed and got soaked.

The famous "foot" of chocolate for 99cents, which is actually a foot made of chocolate. It was yummy :)

We rode the "Ducks" in Branson, which are old military vehicles turned tour buses. They drive you around Branson and give you the history of it, then you get to go onto TableRock Lake in them, they are both water and land vehicles. Maci and Gavin both got to drive the Duck!

View of Table Rock Dam from what they call a "mountain" It ain't no mountain! But it was a pretty view.
Gavin with his quacker, which they hand out to everyone. Needless to say ours need to disappear mysteriously here soon.

We went to the Discovery Center, a children's museum here in Springfield. It's a great place, the kids loved it, and we ended up buying a season pass to it. I'm sure we'll be back again soon!

We went to the Fantastic Caverns, which is one of only 3 caves in the world that allow vehicles to drive through it. You're on a big wagon thing hooked to a jeep that drives you through the cave. It wasn't quite as picturesque as Timp Cave, but a heck of a lot easier to get to :)

Thanks for coming Grandma and Grandpa! We love and miss you. We can't wait for more family on both sides to come and see where we've landed ourselves in the world.

Proud Mama

2008-10-22T10:54:00.000-07:00

Maci had her first Parent Teacher Conference yesterday. I have such a great kindergartener! Mrs. Mays says she's on track and beyond in lots of areas of what they're learning, and she gave her not just checks, but plusses, in all her social categories. She said she's always playing with everyone, has so many friends, is always responsible and doing what's she's supposed to when she's supposed to, is always willing to help the teacher and other students, and is all around just a great kid to have in class! All of that of course I already knew :) but it's always nice to hear what they're doing when you're not there to hold their hand. Maci loves school and I'm so glad she's willing to learn and excited every day to go to school. I can't believe I have a 5 year old! She's such a good kid and I couldn't ask for a better one. I love you Maci!!

What I've been up to this week

2008-10-22T10:50:00.000-07:00

So I haven't posted the last week, just thought I'd give you a rundown of what we've been up to. I've done 2 Super Saturdays, a couple orders for Etsy, and one craft night and day for my own ward here. I've cut
35 sets of Harvest blocks and 35 pumpkins
31 sets of Peace blocks and 31 angels
9 JOY letter sets
2 Witch letter sets
1 Spooky set
1 Boo set
and a partridge in a pear tree!!

Well, not really, but I'm sure something I've cut would count as a partridge. My garage is covered in sawdust and my garbage can is full of scraps. It's been a busy week, but Chris has helped a lot and all have been shipped and painted with success. My parents come into town tomorrow! So I'm glad the craft craziness is over and I can focus on having a fabulous time with them. Thanks for listening to me whine!

I made Maci throw up today.

2008-10-16T15:07:00.000-07:00

So I had a really bad mom moment today. I packed Maci's lunch, and specifically found the last granola bar that was just chocolate chip, no peanut butter. She's allergic to PB. So I THOUGHT I put that one in her lunch, but turns out, I didn't. I got a voicemail from the nurse around 2:30, saying she'd thrown up because she thought she ate some PB and that she was fine now, but they'd given her a shirt to wear, etc. Uggg talk about guilt! I figured out what I must have done. I didn't call the school, cause I figured if she was fine, no need to do that now. And they called like 3 hours after they each lunch? I'm sure she must have thrown up around 12:00, she usually throws up right after she eats something with peanuts. She said she smelled the granola bar and it didn't smell like PB, ate one bite and knew that it had PB in it. 1 bite! and she throws up. Oh well, I guess I should be glad she doesn't have some deathly allergic reaction. I felt really bad though. She was a trooper and said everyone was nice to her and didn't tease her. I am a horrible mother! today anyway.

Snack of Champions

2008-10-15T11:45:00.000-07:00

I ate Bugles today. They were beckoning me at the Dollar store and I succumbed. I love Bugles. They remind me of my grandma. She would often have them at her house, something my parents rarely bought. They are crispy, crunchy, irresistibly salty, shaped like little cornucopias, yummy. They made me think of happy memories and fun times with my sister's at my grandma's house. Just thought I'd share my jaunt down memory lane. Eat some Bugles :)

Fun Fall Traditions

2008-10-12T17:28:00.001-07:00

Tonight we did a fun fall tradition, baking sugar cookies and decorating them. The kids helped me make the dough, cut out the shapes, and then frost them. We gave a plate away to a neighbor with one of those "Pass it Around the Neighborhood" poem things that Chris's mom gave to us. Our neighbor caught us, but that's ok. We had a nice chat and passed on the cookies, (only adult frosted ones). We had a great time.

A couple nights ago we decided to have a movie night, and bought the Great Pumpkin off of iTunes. We blew up the air mattress, our kids favorite thing to do to make a night special, and made some popcorn balls. I found this recipe online and it was really good, the goo was just gooey enough but not crunchy. I like the chewy kind. So try them out! We put orange food coloring in too for festive fun.

This made 10 popcorn balls, plenty for our family, you could double for 20.
1/4 c + 2 TB light corn syrup
2 TB margarine or butter
1 tsp cold water
1 1/4 + 1 TB powdered or confectioners sugar
1/2 c marshmallows
10 C plain popped popcorn ( I needed about 3 bags because our microwave stinks and doesn't pop it very well. I'd go with air popped if you've got it!)

In saucepan over medium heat, combine all the ingredients but the popcorn. Heat and stir until the mixture comes to a boil. (I probably let it boil for about a minute just so it would set up a little) Carefully combine the hot mixture with the popcorn, coating each kernel. Shape balls by hand or use a greased measuring cup to press the popcorn in to form a ball, then set on a greased cookie sheet. Wrap with cellophane or plastic wrap and store at room temperature.

What are some of your fun fall traditions? We're always looking for fun ways to fill our time and make new memories!

You can all say I Told You So

2008-10-12T17:21:00.000-07:00

So I sincerely thought we could keep these fish alive longer than a month, and we did, by a week or so :) Tiger passed away this week. The kids and I were not having a terrific day, and when I saw Tiger looking not so lively at the top of our fishbowl I must admit, I lost it and started crying. Over a fish! ridiculous. It was more for Gavin than the fish. He was pretty upset, and cried for a bit. He didn't quite understand what had happened, especially since Jewel was still alive and swimming. These were some classic kid lines from the experience.

Gavin: "Can't we take him to the hospital mommy?" Gavin after I said the fishy was sick.

Maci: "I guess he'll be in Fishy Heaven with Fishy Jesus" after I reassured Gavin that the fish was in heaven now.

Gavin: "The fishy stopped breathing" is his explanation to everyone we tell about Tiger.

We sent Tiger down the toilet and up to fishy heaven, similar to the scene on the Cosby Show with Lamar. It was a solemn occasion. We have not yet replaced the fish. . . I'm kinda waiting for Jewel to kick the bucket too so we can get two at once :) So you can all say Told Ya So!

Fall is on its way

2008-10-04T19:45:00.000-07:00

Well, we've had a busy week this week. We started school, made a scarecrow, went to a festival, and got some cooler weather which was fabulous! Here's a few pics of our week.

Chris has been planning this scarecrow since about July, kind of a rendition of the one in the opening scenes of Nightmare Before Christmas, I think it turned out pretty well.
Scary, huh! We cut the face from one of those fake ones you can get at Michael's. Then we painted the inside black, and I did some brown paint in the creases to make it look old.

I have found my replacement for Swiss Days! It's the Ozark Arts and Crafts Festival, with over 400 booths! and delicious carny food of course. These spindles are cheap knock offs of a kind my Aunt used to paint, hers are SOOO much better! We had fun browsing the booths and talking myself in and out of doing a booth next year. We'll see.

This was the best part of my week, as the gas prices kept coming down! We got below 3$ for the first time in what seems like forever. I even saw a 2.85 today. At least one thing is getting cheaper, for now anyway. I'll take it.

Chris delved into his first week of grad school. We've realized this is going to be an exciting, yet very challenging chapter of our lives! Chris has spent a lot of time this week studying and even writing a paper already. I've spent a lot of time with the kids :) So we're both going to have to take it all in stride and realize this too shall pass! I'm proud of the start Chris has gotten and know that he'll do great in the coming weeks and year. Any of you out there who have done this and have pearls of wisdom on how to survive, please send it on!

We also got our first taste of general conference outside of UT. We don't get the Mountain channel here, we could, we just don't want to pay for it. So we listened to it on KSL through our AppleTV, which was really good actually. I did a bunch of craft stuff while listening, and I think I got just as much out of it as watching it, hopefully. The kids. . . I'm not sure they caught any of it, but we tried. We were going to try and get to one session at the church, we'll see if we get there. It's weird to watch it a 11 and 3 though! Chris went to the priesthood session tonight at the chapel. It's nice to still be able to take part in these traditions even if it's not with those we usually share them with. The church is the same wherever you go! but we do miss our family we usually share this time with. Love you guys!!

Ally's Attic Website Relaunch

2008-10-01T20:59:00.000-07:00

So I know I haven't updated my craft website in FOREVER, so now was the time. I redid the design a little (you may recognize the look from this blog :) and have updated it with some of my newer stuff that's on the etsy site as well. There's also a blog section where you guys can post comments, I think? and I'd love to hear about what you like, don't like, etc. I'm ready for one of you guys out in Saratoga to start up a new craft group! Or any of you other lucky readers who'd like to delve into the wonderful world of crafts. So I just thought I'd let you know that it is updated and to go check it out! I just did a blog section on some blogs I'm being featured on, so go check those out too! Thanks for looking :)

www.allysattic.net

Applefest

2008-09-29T14:49:00.001-07:00

I think you're probably finding a common theme in our recent posts. We like going to festivals! Especially in the fall. Apparently, there are a lot to be found here in the Ozarks, which is great for us! This weekend we went to Marionville's Apple Fest. It was about 30 min away and the drive was beautiful. The leaves haven't started changing here quite yet, but it was still a wonderful ride. We got there and walked around a bit, they had craft booths, a few carnival type games, and blow up things for the kids. They also had a live band and lots of apple type foods, pie, loose apples in bags, and apple butter. I found out apple butter is not like honey butter, or butter with apple flavoring in it, but rather more of an apple jam that you'd use like butter. An Ah-Hah moment there :) We bought some of that, and some apples, and had an apple slushy, which was delicious! We browsed, listened to a rousing gospel song by a woman in a Johnny Appleseed costume, and then let the kids do one bouncy ride. They chose the gigantic slide of course. We had a great time at the Applefest and look forward to coming years!

We decided to make a day of our playing, and went to pick pumpkins at a local farm as well. We went to the Jones Farm and let the kids pick a few pumpkins. It was a fun place and the pumpkins were really good quality, and it was much funner than picking them out of a bin at Walmart which is what we did last year :) We had a great time.

We just got back from our first MFT (marriage and family therapy) get together. It was really fun and we sat with two of the professors and their wives/husbands. Dr. Baker, she's the head of the department, is really great and her husband was hilarious. The party was at her house. We had a great time at their table and I think we all hit it off well, so I'm glad for Chris's sake that it went well. He had his first two classes today and he said they went well and that he felt like he had a handle on what they were discussing, etc. So I'm glad he had a good first day! Now on to the next 4 years!

Cider Days

2008-09-21T10:58:00.000-07:00

We went to a Springfield Festival called Cider Days yesterday. It's on historic Walnut St. which has lots of really cool old victorian houses on it. I just Wikipedia'd Walnut street and it says that there are 21 houses built before the 1900 mark that are still around, and 59 from 1900-1910! They're really fun to look at and have a grand presence. There are 150 historic buildings in the district as a whole. They had a "scarecrow village" which I admit I was picturing something a little more grand than what we got, but it was fun anyway. You can submit your scarecrow and make one of your own, kind of like the festival of trees on a much smaller scale! They had lots of craft booths and food, live music, etc. so it was fun to browse and eat a gigantic corn dog, they had a bouncer house for the kids, it was a fun day. I might think about doing a booth there next year, they didn't really have any stuff like my stuff there. There was a lot of jewelry and local handmade pottery. It was fun, I'm glad we went.

This was the coolest scarecrow I though, it was a mummy one. The detail on it was cool.

I try not to get too political on here, don't get me started! But I couldn't resist taking this picture, the Obama people camped out by the port-o-potties?! Take it as you will. . .

I can't think of a catchy title

2008-09-19T17:40:00.000-07:00

So there, that will be the title. Anyway, it's been a while since my last post! Sorry for the delay, I'm sure all inquiring minds want to know what we've been up to. So here goes a couple weeks in review.

Last weekend I went to St. Louis with 2 other girls in my ward to Time Out for Women. This is an EFY type thing for LDS women, it's a 2 day event. We went Friday night and ate at the Cheesecake Factory, yummmm. I even made sure not to eat too much so I had room for the cheesecake. It was delish. They had a concert for the event but we decided not to go, and go to eat instead :) We stayed at the Embassy Suites where the thing was being held, the room was really nice. One of the girls I went with, her husband has lots of frequent flyer stuff so we got the room for free.

Sat. we heard from about 5 speakers and 2 musical performances, Hilary Weeks and Cherie Call. They were all so great! It was very inspiring and uplifting and a much needed break. The talks were all on how to have more Joy in your life, and I'm going to really try and put some of the things they talked about into use. I think the most important thing I got out of it, and it seems like I've been having flashes of this a lot lately, is to just enjoy the moment. Don't worry about how clean, or not clean, your house is (to a point, mom :) ) just enjoy being with your kids and your family, live in the moment, don't sweat the small stuff, all that jazz. I played Bingo this morning with Gavin for 15 minutes and it was definitely the best part of my day. I need to do it more often! So if you ever get a chance to go to one of these, you should definitely go. I think those of us in UT sometimes don't take advantage of all the great things the church organizations have to offer because we're so surrounded by it all the time. But here women really rally around each other in the church and bond as a group, and I loved it. So go the next time it's in town! Thanks to my two new friends, Angelita and Karmen for inviting me to go with them, they've been so fun and great to be around, and so welcoming! Thanks guys.

http://deseretbook.com/time-out/

So Chris was great and took great care of the kids while I was gone. The house was spotless when I got home, and the kids had a great daddy weekend. So thank you babe for letting me go!

Chris has been working again this week full time, I dont' know if I posted that, but he's working for a guy in the ward. He's liking it ok, and we're grateful for the offer and that he's willing to work with Chris's school schedule. He starts next week on the 24th. He's very excited to get going. Maci has been doing great in school and loving it. She really wants to ride the bus. . . I told her she could on Monday and we'll see how it goes. I've heard that there's some unsavory language used on the bus. . . I'll have to quiz her on what she heard when she gets home. She's learning a lot about how to be healthy, so we're trying as a family to be better about eating (and drinking) healthy. She's really into drinking water these days, which is great. She has never really liked drinking water, but I guess when your teacher says it's a good thing, THEN it's a good thing. I'm glad for that, but it's kinda scary at the same time, teacher's have a lot of power. I'm glad we can always talk about what she's learning in school and steer her if there's a need, which there hasn't been so far. You never know?!

Gavin has been a trooper this week. We got him a spiderman costume for halloween and he's been wearing it non stop, even to bed a couple nights. I finally said I needed to wash it and he relenquished it, so we'll see if it holds up till Halloween.

I've been really busy doing crafts, I got my Branson booth set up this week, and have sold something every day this week on Etsy. I'm also working on redoing my website a little, I'll post when it's finished so you guys can check out the new do. There's a few new things on there, I know I haven't put new stuff on there since Christmas! I need to put some more shelves in and definitely more stuff, but I wanted to get it up and running. I haven't been able to check and see if anything has sold yet, keep your fingers crossed!

Today I locked myself out of the house without my car keys. I was going to pick Maci up from school. I called Angelita and she was able to pick up Maci, and I called Chris and he was there in about 20 minutes to unlock the door. I was so glad I knew someone from the ward well enough to know that I didn't have to worry about Maci. It's so great to be a part of something so stable and inclusive, I've really appreciated these ladies taking me in under their wing and making me feel at home! I don't know what I would have done today without Angelita!

Hope you're all doing well, I lost all my links for blogs, that's why some of yours are gone over to the right. I will get them back up slowly but surely. Love you and miss you all!

A New Addition to our Family

2008-09-07T18:16:00.001-07:00

So I know this might be kind of weird to announce on a blog, but you've gotta do it sometime, right? We thought it was finally time to have a new addition in our family, after all, Gavin is 3! So after much thought and contemplation, here's our official announcement.

We

Are

Pet owners!!!
Gotcha, eh?!
I don't know if owning two fish really qualifies you as "pet owners", but we'll take the title with all it's worth. After all, we do have to feed them, and wash out their bowl, which can be a very stinky job, and we do lovingly talk to them in baby voices through the glass. We promised Maci and Gavin that they could get a pet when we moved, to try and fill the friend and cousin void they would definitely be feeling. We decided on a fish because they do not rip up the yard or tear wholes in hoses, they do not have fur to make me sneeze and itch, and they take up a small amount of space. Sounds like the perfect pet to me. As most of you know I'm not really a "pet person". But so far the fish have made themselves at home and I have not found need to dislike them yet. Maci named hers Diamond Jewel, and Gavin named his Tiger. Very good names for their respective personalities, the kids, not the fish. Tiger is the orange one and Diamond is the whiter one that you can't see very well. You'll have to wait a little longer for the REAL new addition post, hopefully it will be coming in the somewhat near future. For now, the fish will have to do!

The Rundown

2008-09-06T07:10:00.000-07:00

It's been another busy week, and here's what we've been up to!

We've painted two more rooms, the office and the kid's rooms. Now every room except the bathrooms has at least SOME paint on the walls. We're done for a little while, a couple weeks at least!

Maci started dance lessons, she's very excited!

We had a friend over for the first time! Thanks for coming over Emma! ( a girl from the ward)

Chris had an interview with a local troubled youth mental hospital, looks like he'll get the job but it's a very part time position. He'll probably do that and another job for now, they said a part time position with more hours would probably open up soon that he could take over. Way to go babe!!

Maci passed off three things in her kindergarten class so she could be in their respective "clubs". She recognized all her letters, upper and lower, made a simple pattern, and wrote her name correctly with upper and lower letters. Way to go Maci! She is learning so much in kindergarten, I'm always amazed at what she said she did when she gets home. I kinda like this all day thing!

We tried another frozen custard place, this was my most exciting thing of the week :) Very delicious! It's like ice cream but much creamier, ymmmmm.

I worked a lot on stuff for my booth in Branson. I think I stayed up till at least 1 every night this week, two nights it was about 2:30. Crazy, I know, but it's when I get stuff done!

Gavin played around with his hulk smash hands a lot and finally got a batman haircut! (a buzz).

So that was our exciting week, and I don't have pictures of any of it! Ta Ta For Now!

Wonderful Labor(less) Day

2008-09-01T20:59:00.000-07:00

We just had the best Labor Day ever I think. There's a few days that come along that are just perfect, in almost every way, today was one of those days. First off Chris let me sleep in till an unsightly 10 am!! I NEVER do that! but it was really nice, so thank you babe! He already had the kids fed, dressed, and had mowed the lawn and trimmed all the bushes in the back yard. What a guy! Then he thought it would be fun if we took a day trip to some flea markets and wound our way through the Ozarks for a fun adventure. I was game of course!

First we went to a little town called Crane, where they're supposed to have some great flea markets. We walked through about 5, meandering among all the old things, finding a few fun things in the bunch. We got an old bottle, something we collect from our various vacation spots, and a fun porch crate to put cute things in. We also got an old pallet that a lady had painted pumpkins on that said "Welcome to our patch", it's very cute. The kids had fun looking at all the stuff, and the drive there was gorgeous! We've decided we live in a very beautiful spot, even if it is a tidge on the humid side. We also stopped and saw some baby cows in a field, the kids got a kick out of that.

Our next stop was to an old bridge with a river below that has public access. It's a beautiful view, and the water was very pleasant. Next time we're going to remember to bring some shoes that can get wet though, walking on the rocks was not too fun! But the kids had a ball splashing in the river and looking for fish. We had a great time.

Then we decided to drive in to Branson for dinner. On the way we passed a dairy farm that had a sign out that said Fresh Cheese Curds Today. So of course we had to stop there!! I haven't had cheese curds for a long time! and it totally brought both Chris and I back to our childhoods. The kids really liked them, I wasn't sure if they would. So that was a fun pit stop.

We got to Branson and decided to do a little shopping at the outlet mall. I was kind of disappointed, the prices seemed better in Park City even though it's the same shops. I didn't buy anything, but we did find Chris a new pair of shoes he's been needing, so that was good. I'll just have to go to Park City when we come home to visit! Then it was off to the Rib Crib for some grub. They dooooo have gooooood BBQ down here. I always get this baked potato that they load with cheese, beef brisket, sour cream, and then BBQ sauce, soooooooo good! Chris got ribs and brisket, it was all very yummy. Then it was back home for a bath and bed. We had such a fun time meandering along the little country highways. The Ozarks really are beautiful, and we cannot WAIT for the leaves to start changing. Chris will be in HOG FALL HEAVEN!! Have I convinced any of you to come visit yet??

Just a cool old barn we passed.

Flea Market Main Street in Crane, MO There must have been at least 10 on this street alone.

Ahh, how sweet! They were so nice to each other today, it was a perfect day.

Let's hope she doesn't get Ecoli or something!

Gavy Turns 3!

2008-09-01T20:32:00.000-07:00

Man the time is flying here! I'm not sure if it's because we've had so much to do, or the fact that Maci's in school now, whatever the case this week flew by. Here's a small recap of what we did.

We finished unpacking most of the boxes and put a few more up in our newly floored attic. We still need to tuck the Christmas stuff away in the shed and put the rest in the garage in an organized way so we can actually park in there. But it looks much better and the pile is much less daunting. I got my craft room mostly painted, one wall to go, and got it pretty organized, although every time I do a project it quickly becomes unorganized again. Such is life. I went to one play date with some girls in the ward, which was very nice to invite me. Gavin and I had a great time. We went to Branson on Friday and got signed up to do a craft booth at one of the 3 craft malls they have there. I'm very excited and have been busy working on stuff to get in there. Vinyl is not a big thing here yet, so I'm doing lots of tiles and boards, and a few other things here and there I'm sure. I've been busy tonight making cute burp clothes out of cloth diapers, embellished with fabric and ribbon. Very fun!

Then Saturday was Gavin's big #3 birthday!! He's been waiting for this birthday for some time, as we told him his birthday was after we got to Missouri. We talked about MO a lot before we got here, so he was constantly saying, "My Birthday is after MO", yup yup yup. So I was afraid once we got here he would be really disappointed he had to wait another couple weeks. But he was a good sport and didn't make a stink about it. He was also very against saying that he was officially 3. He loves saying that he's two-a-half. But by the end of the day we had him convinced it was ok to say he was three. I tried to make him a big breakfast, but he said over and over he just wanted a pop tart, ok, easily done. So we let him open his presents after breakfast so he'd have something to do till we did our big activity in the afternoon. He got a lovely pair of dino pajamas and a new dinosaur for his growing collection from the Boren side, and a really cool crashing truck rally car thing and various other fun things from Grandma W, and a ride on the ducks in Branson from Grandpa W, (which we haven't done yet but we will soon! We got him a pair of Hulk Smash gloves that he has been wanting for a while, and Maci got him a Batman mask, so he would have some type of manly dress-up apparel. He wears her dresses far too often! He loved all his presents and was quite content playing with them till his nap. After he woke up we went to JumpMania, a Kangaroo Zoo type bouncer place in Springfield. The kids had a blast, and we had to drag them out 1.5 hrs. later. We went to a place in Nixa called Bud and Walt's for dinner, it's a pizza/pasta place. It was really good, they have huge big screens everywhere and some with cartoons on them, so the kids were transfixed. It was fun, but I wouldn't want to eat that way every night, everyone glued to a huge tv :) But the kids thought it was cool. Then we had pake (cake) and ice cream at home to finish off the night. Gavin had a great day and I was glad we could make it special for him. We love you buddy!!!

He was ecstatic when we found that his pajamas glow in the dark! How fun!

He kept running around saying, "You want a piece of me?" Very intimidating!

Crash 'em!

He even wanted to wear them to bed!

Weeee! Not as big as the one at Kangaroo Zoo, but it'll do :)

Sunday we spoke in church. It went pretty well I think, I'm just glad it's over!! I only lost it once, when talking about going to the dump with my dad, who knew it could bring up such emotions! Chris did a great job, and I think it was nice for everyone to see who we were and where we came from, etc. I got up the guts and invited two families over for ice cream on Sunday, both have been very nice and invited us to things and helped us move, one of the guys got Chris a part-time job, just have gone out of their way to be very inviting to us. It was really fun and we had a great time. Both of them have girl's Maci's age, though neither of them go to her school. There were 8 kids here in all, and they all had a ball outside playing for 3 hours while the adults talked in the house. We had a great time and hopefully these friendships will continue on.

Chris did get a part-time job offer from this guy. He is an intermediate company between large corporations and the hospitals in the area, working out what kind of insurance they need, plans, etc. Chris would be cold calling new businesses seeing if they'd like the service, so not a fabulous job, but a job nonetheless! He also has an interview with a local behavioral hospital that works with troubled teens/adults who are having mental issues. So we're hoping he gets that one too so it would be in his field. He'll work both till school starts on the 25th and then probably cut the insurance one and just work part time at the other. So that's great news!!

I've got to start writing more often so these posts aren't so long! Sorry :)

Things we've done so far

2008-08-23T12:58:00.000-07:00

I think is my last post, promise. I just wanted to highlight a few things we've done so far here in Springfield.

Top Ten Reasons to Live in Springfield
10 It's not THAT humid. . . honestly!
9 There's trees here, lots of them, and you don't even have to plant most of them!
8 It's green here, because of said trees
7 30 min from Branson
6 They have butter in the longer skinnier cubes, I've always wanted to use that shape of butter.
5 They have local cable free! We get a whopping 5 channels!
4 The Library Center, an awesome county library with lots of fun stuff and a great children's section. Lots of DVD's and VHS to check out, due to lack of said channels!
3 Andy's Frozen Custard Think Sonic on Steroids! YUMMMM!
2 3.27$ Gas! No Joke! (by the way when did that become cheap? for gas? when UT is at 4.05$ yikes)

• We're here, of course!!!

We've also gone to the local pool, drove out to Branson to check on the craft mall situation, visited Chris's school, found a wonderful waffle house (I love breakfast for dinner), spent countless dollars going to Walmart and Home Depot about 20 times each, and phewww, that's our first week in MO. Love you all!

Happy Anniversary!

2008-08-23T12:53:00.000-07:00

So in the midst of all this hullaballooo, Chris and I had our 7th anniversary! On August 15th. The day was crazy, we painted the house, got Maci off to her first day of school, and had a pretty miserable evening with tired kids trying to decide where to eat, me being grumpy about nothing, Gavin spilling Chris's fresh peach shake all over the floor, just generally not the best anniversary we've had. But we made up for it on the 16th, by planning the dinner outing about 2 hrs earlier, not having to deal with school, and just generally being in a better mood! We went to Lamberts, home of the "Throwed Rolls", in Ozark. It's kind of a big tourist attraction here, we waited 1.5 hrs! But it was fun. The food was great, the conversation of course is always good, and the atmosphere was fun. Chris and I got each other new lights for the kitchen and orange paint! Isn't that romantic! Anyway, love ya babe, and can't wait for another 77 years with you by my side. You're my best friend and I'm so happy to be with you forever. Love ya!!

Maci's First Day of Kindergarten

2008-08-23T12:38:00.000-07:00

So Maci started school the day after we got here, the 15th of August. They don't do the week later kindergarten thing here, but her school only goes till 4th grade, so there's not a ton of big kids around to intimidate them. We went on Thursday and got her registered, met her teacher and walked all around the school. She loved it. Her teacher is Mrs. Mays and she's very sweet. She only has about 15 kids in her class, which is fabulous! It goes from 8:40-3:40 every day, needless to say she's pretty exhausted when she gets home. She had virtually no qualms about going, we walked in and found her seat, she sat down and started coloring, gave us a hug goodbye, that was it! She was adamant though about bringing an apple for her teacher, she was the only one who did. Her teacher looked very pleased and thought it was sweet. She loves that she gets to bring a lunch. I don't think she'll be riding the bus, that's just too big a leap for me! But I love picking her up and hearing about her day. She's done great so far and has met some new friends, Lilian is the one I've heard the most about. I am going to volunteer at the library during the time her class goes on Thursdays, so I got to meet a few of the friends she's talked about, and check out those who she's kind of complained about being mean ;) It was really fun to be a part of her school experience and I hope I can keep doing it. I thought I'd have a harder time with her actually going, and I do miss her, but I'm not worried about her the way I thought I'd be. She's safe there and I don't have to worry about that, which is great. Gavin is doing pretty well without her, he always wants to save some of his lunch or a treat to share with Maci when she gets home. Daddy's been home to help me keep him occupied, we'll see how we fair when I'm on my own. Way to be a big kindergartener Maci! We love you!

This is what the backpack fairy left her for her first day of school. Yes, we like fairy's at our house!

Catch-up

2008-08-23T10:29:00.000-07:00

Phew, we made it. We're here. We have arrived. Here's a couple things that happened before we left and during the trip.

First off, Maci lost her first tooth! It's been wiggling for a couple weeks, and it finally came out with the help of Gavin and a little kick in the mouth, at Applebee's in AF on the 9th of August. We were at dinner with Grandma and Grandma Great and Maci showed me something in her hand. I said What is THAT?? I thought it was a boogie actually. And then she said, it's my tooth! I guess Gavin had nudged her with his foot, every so gently I'm sure, and it popped out. It was very close to coming out on its own anyway. She said it didn't hurt at all. We of course put it under her pillow on their makeshift bed and the tooth fairy left her 2.50$! I know, the tooth fairy should probably lower her rates a bit. . . but it was a first tooth! She paid her tithing of .25C the next day. She is very excited about the window in her smile and you can already see the other tooth coming in. Way to go Maci!

Alright, on to the great expedition. We left Tuesday morning by around 8am, an hour later than we hoped, but that's just the way it goes. Chris drove the van the whole way with the trailer and both kids. I tried to get him to switch with me, he finally did one hour outiside of Springfield. He wanted it to be him driving if the tires blew on the trailer, so I got to drive in the quiet of the Honda with just me and Rush Limbaugh to keep me company, and several cans of Diet Mt. Dew. The drive was beautiful, minus Wyoming, sorry Wyomingers :) and we had no car trouble, kid trouble, or any other kind of trouble. Googlemap said it would take 23hrs to get here, we figured we could knock off at least 5 of those. . . well with stops it didn't happen. We made it to North Platte, NE the first night, 12 hrs of travel time. It took us another 12 hrs to get to Springfield. Without the stops, we probably could have done it in 18, but with potty stops and eat stops and I can't drive another mile without stopping stops, it took us around 23hrs. It did make us rethink driving home for Christmas though, we might splurge and buy plane tickets :) The plains are really windy!, I can't imagine them with snow on them too. Makes you wonder how the pioneers did it.

Chris suran wrapping the trailer due to some rain we ran into. We had Ikea boxes in there we didn't want to get wet and ruined before we put the furniture together. Chris was kind of suran wrap happy! but everything arrived unbroken and unharmed, thanks to him!

Full to the brim!

Happy kids.

Anyway, we arrived late on Wed night. Silly me, had forgotten our new house keys in UT. I realized this about 2 hrs out of UT, but we didn't want to turn around and lose that time. So my lovely mother fedexed the keys out to us. They were to arrive by the time we got there on Wed. Well, we got there, no keys. They said they'd left them on the front doorstep, no keys. So we stayed in a hotel that night, which we were going to do anyway, and hoped they could be found in the morning. We still couldn't find them, and decided to call a locksmith. As he was unlocking the door, I realized I should probably check to see if they were sent to the right address. Sure enough, they weren't, they were two houses down due to a small error by a sister who shall remain nameless ;) A 2 vs a 6 does make a difference! Anyway, we got the keys and all was well. We didn't get our moving truck here till the next Monday, so we roughed it for a couple days with minimal food, clothing, etc. But we survived! We've been busy unpacking, organizing, scrimping every inch of space out of this house. We're close to being done, and I even hung up some pictures, etc yesterday which made it feel more like home.
Here's some before and after pics, we love the paint colors we chose.

The neighbors have been nice, I've met a few, and there are a few 3-5 yr olds in the neighborhood so that's good. We live on a cul-de-sac too which I love, and should have realized the advantages of sooner. I can send them down to the end on their bikes and not worry about too much traffic, or them getting too far, etc.

We've all adjusted pretty well, I think Gavin and I have had the hardest time, but we're all getting happier and better. We're off right now to the city pool which is something like the Legacy Center, but it's all outdoors and it closes next week, so we thought we'd get it in while we can and let the boxes sit for today. I'll post more about Maci's school, etc. when we get back.

ps we did go to church on Sunday, everyone was very nice and friendly. Lots of young people, thank goodness! They actually have 3 nurseries! which is kind of unheard of unless you live in Saratoga Springs :) or countless other UT wards, but I didn't expect it here. We get to speak on the 31st, YEAH!!! :(

We Made It!

2008-08-19T17:24:00.000-07:00

Just wanted to let everybody know we made it safe and sound to MO. It's been great so far, with only a few bumps and bruises along the way. I'm on a library computer with only 15 minutes to use it so I won't write much, but we should have internet by the beginning of next week. I have about 20 posts, so get ready for a marathon catch-up! Talk to you soon!