St. Patrick's Day 2014

Twas the day before St. Patrick's Day and boy were we blessed with a sunny day. Haven't seen another sunny day since but it's almost Spring right???

After church my kids spent a few hours preparing their leprechaun traps.

We had temperatures in the high 50's. With the sun shining on us it felt like summer! Wanting to take advantage of this sunny day a few kids decided to paint their traps outside.

Brayden decided to use a birthday hat. He covered his with sticky foam letters.

Emily chose to paint her used ice cream bucket a golden color to help attract that sneaky leprechaun.

We had been in sunny St. George earlier in the week so I had pulled out some short sleeved shirts for the baby. When the girls changed her out of her Sunday dress they dressed her in one of her new "summer time" shirts. 

It seems like all I get lately from this little love bug is a scrunched up face or a serious one.

Emily with her final contraption.

Madelyn and hers.

Brayden used legos for his stairs. When the leprechaun reaches for that gold shiny bell the stairs will break and he'll fall inside!

Hunter though he was too old for this fun but in the end decided to join too. He filled his trap with all sorts of gold shiny objects.

It was like Christmas Eve for my kiddo's. They had the hardest time going to bed and woke up much earlier than usual. That sneaky leprechaun got away but left everyone their very own Starburst package in their traps. It was decided this was what he used to escape. This year we were left with a new fun table cloth covered in green caramel suckers and a case of soda pop.We must not drink/buy soda often enough as this was the BEST thing the leprechaun has EVER left before!!

My kids were on a sugar high as they left for school all dressed up in green.

Kylie was still sleeping during the morning chaos and Hunter had a little accident. During his baseball practice he had hurt his arm and had asked to wrap it up in an ace bandage. Kory has a few essential oil's and so I thought we'd try a mending one on his arm. He must have gotten some of oils on his fingers and when he rubbed his eyes they started to burn. He of course did this while I was trying to take a "almost" family kid picture. Maybe next year....

It was a great day filled with green foods as per our tradition's.We had green egg's and pudding for breakfast. Followed by a green alfredo sauce over noodles, green dinner rolls and green jello for dinner.  

Hunter's 5th grade play

It seems like when I was a child we had the D.A.R.E (drug free) program at school during 5th grade.  It might not be D.A.R.E in our elementary school but Hunter has learned a lot this year about the dangers of drugs and alcohol.  Thursday Hunter and his class performed in front of the whole school. I was there to watch but had to leave after Kylie threw up all over herself twice. Thankfully later that night our whole family had another opportunity to watch him perform. I can't say it enough. They did an AWESOME job. A week later my younger kids are still singing some of the songs. 

"I pledge to live a drug free life because I want to be happy and healthy. I will say no to alcohol, tobacco and illegal drugs and yes to my own self worth. I will encourage my friends to join me and to stand up for what is right. "

Forever free. That's what I'll be. This is my solemn vow. I will stand tall, not fall, fight for....

Forever free. That's what I'll be. I will stand tall, not fall, be strong...

Forever free. My destiny. I've got the power now...

I won't let anyone stand in my way.

Forever free I'll be!

The music was outstanding! The kids have been practicing for months and it really showed. They had the words to all the songs and the dancing down perfectly!

Hunter had several lines to memorize over these past few weeks. 

Every single child did an amazing job on their parts.

For a group of 10-11 year old boys and girls they were amazing. The program was about 45 minutes long and not once did I look at the clock wondering how much longer. My girls and Brayden had seen it earlier that day and were excited to see it again. I was a little worried about Brayden getting bored but they seemed to keep his attention the 2nd time too. I wish I had been able to video record it so that Hunter could watch it. They did so well. 

I really hope this class learned and took to heart about the danger of drugs and alcohol. I hope each and every one of them will keep there vow and remain drug free! This class is so awesome and they have endless possibilities. I am saddened to know that Hunter won't continue to grow up with this great group of friends that he has made over the past few years we've lived in the area. These kids will be missed!

Great job Hunter!!!

Emily's 1st Basketball Season

The last of our Junior Jazz Season.

Basketball is officially over for our family!

This year was Emily's 1st year to play basketball. Her team consisted of all 1st & 2nd graders from her school. Her and cousin Rachel (These girls are two days apart.) were the only girls on the team. 

These kids had practice after school every Wednesday for a month. During the 5th week they had practice followed by their one and only game. Before the game their coach was having them pass the ball back and forth while sitting. Emily did a little cheer every time her partner caught the ball. 

Love this look. 

Is she afraid of the ball?

She's getting better and better at dribbling. 

 She loved her turns throwing the ball in.

And.....she caught the pass!

She caught it again.

 So proud of you Miss Emily!

She played a wonderful game. She ran fast, was quick on her feet, made a basket and stole the ball.

She was so excited that her team won by 10 points!

During her game Dad was at work, the older kids were at friends so it was just Miss Kylie and Mom cheering her on. Couldn't help but snap a few picts. of this cutie pie. 

Mom Of The Year Award

I just won the Mom of the Year Award 

NOT!!

Even though I know I can't be I try really hard to be Super Mom. I try to be EXTRA patient, loving and understanding with my kids. Over the years I've learned that there is more to life than a perfect, nothing out of it's place home. I try to put my kids first and MY wants second. I saw a quote many years ago that talked about what kids will remember from childhood. Do I as a mom want my kids to remember the mom that was always cleaning or the mom that made fun times; playing with lego's, coloring together, baking in the kitchen and blowing bubbles. 

I'm not Super Mom and I made a mistake last week. One that I feel really, really guilty about.

After our Blue and Gold Banquet last Tuesday it was basically left up to my kids and I to do the clean up with a few extra hands. Kory was working out of town and he was definitely being missed. In my defense, I get one, I was beyond tired. I had had sick kids for almost a week and had been woken up numerous times with them each and every night. That particular day both Hunter and Brayden had stayed home due to the flu bug that just wouldn't go. I was planning on having help with the set-up and decorating earlier that day that "no showed". After the big event my "helper" went home because she had little kids that needed to go to bed. Apparently her 11 kids the oldest being 19 and youngest being 1 are littler than my 5 kids ranging in ages of 1-10! To say I was mad and upset and let's not forget tired was an understatement! 

I asked Hunter to vacuum the floors when we got all the tables and chairs put away. He was using our church's heavy duty vacuum that once started runs on its own and you just guide it. 

Some of the kids that were suppose to go home and get to bed missed the memo and were still at the church even though Mom and the baby had walked home. These kids drive me CRAZY!! They think it's funny to jump in front of whom ever is vacuuming and then jump out of the way. They appeared to be having so much fun that my four year old, Brayden joined in on the fun. It didn't matter that Hunter had asked them to stop numerous times. I had also told these boys numerous times to stop but like usual they ignored me too. I walked out of the room to put something away and came back to a screaming Kylie, because I left her for the up-teenth time, and a crying uncontrollably Brayden. I was tired, remember? All I wanted was to go home and get everyone to bed. I knew Brayden had hurt his foot and Hunter told me he had run over it with the vacuum because he hadn't jumped out of the way fast enough. I told him it served him right. He had just heard me tell the other boys to quit jumping in front of Hunter. I really didn't think it was that bad! After Brayden crying for what seemed like forever and Kylie screaming for me I took both out to the foyer and put them on the couch to cry it out while the bigger kids and I finished. 

Walking out to the car with a load of stuff I took the time to look at Brayden's foot. His big toenail, NOT toe was purplish/blue and I really thought it was finger nail polish. The girls had painted their toenail earlier that week what looked like the same color. I didn't see anything wrong. I kept telling him that he was fine, to stop crying, he's just tired and still feeling sick! We finally got the church cleaned and headed home. Brayden and Kylie cried/screamed the ENTIRE way home. I was seriously ready to go drown myself. 

When we got home Brayden was still crying uncontrollably and didn't want to go to bed because his toe hurt. Super Mom here spanked his little butt all the way up the stairs and told him to go to bed anyways that he was just fine!

The next day I noticed immediately that he came down the stairs limping. When asked why he told me his toe still hurt. After looking at it more calmly that morning I realized his toe nail wasn't painted but in fact bruised. I felt TERRIBLE! He really had been hurt and I was too busy/tired to see it. It has stayed purple/blue all week long. Several extended family member's commented on it this past weekend. It looked so bad. This morning I decided to take a picture of it and it's not blue anymore. His toenail cracked near the bottom and released a lot of blood. His sock he had worn during the night had a rather large blood stain. He's not limping anymore either. This is what his toe looks like. I really hope his toe nail doesn't fall off but.... it probably will. 

I did learn a lesson from all this. Next time something like this happens. I'm going home! I'm not going to spend more than an hour cleaning up by myself with my tired, sick kids. The church could have waited till the the next morning to be cleaned. Something I'm sure doesn't happen often but wouldn't have mattered. I know the older boys enjoyed playing basketball in the gym that night but it wasn't a planned event. They could have found something else to do that night. 

Blue and Gold Night

Scouts

The very end of December I was given another calling...

Webelo's Leader. Woo Hoo!!

Hunter is soon turning 11 and will advance from Cub Scouts to the 11 year old scouts. I'm so excited to be his leader during his last 4 months of Cub Scouts.  I somehow, the day of, became in charge of our Blue and Gold Banquet, the biggest night of Cub Scout's. Our theme this month was Resourcefulness/Invention Convention. Much earlier in the month the other scout leader and I had talked about giving the boys a bag of "stuff" for them to create from. Unfortunately, my two Webelo's were the only ones given the bags. We would use their invention's for our table center pieces.

Ben's creation

Hunter's creation

Being the last minute I ransacked my house for ideas that fit with our theme. I tried to pick a few objects that the kids would recognize and use to add to our center pieces with the inventors name. It was fun to hear the kids walk around and say things like, "I didn't know John Deere invented the John Deere tractors".

As part of our decor I brought my kids creation's they made with Grandma last year and hung up by our food table. I thought They were perfect for our Invention theme. 

After dinner and our flag ceremony we began the fun stuff. Our first activity was building something with toothpicks and mini marshmallows. 

Kylie loved sucking the sticky of the tooth picks.

Following our activity that everyone raved on and on about we had our scout skit. These are my favorite, the sillier they are the more fun the scouts have. Our skit was suppose to be put on by the Webelos this month but my other young man refused to participate so we had cousin Zeek help Hunter out. 

Hunter is sitting on his bed just looking at the mess on the floor. Then Zeek walks in.

Zeek: Hey Hunter what are you doing?

Hunter: Nothing, just sitting here trying to come up with an invention.

Zeek: Wow! That sounds fun. Can I help?

Hunter: Sure, I need that basket, the book and a rag, I guess that dirty sock will do.

Zeek goes around and picks those things up and brings it to Hunter. 

Zeek: What else?

Hunter: I could probably use that sling shot, the base ball glove and I've got to use the rope to tie it all together.

Zeek: Picks everything else up and puts it into the basket sitting next to Hunter.

Hunter: Well I guess that's it. That was a great invention!

Zeek: I don't get it. What did we invent?

Hunter: A way to clean up my room before my mom gets home. 

HaHaHaHaHaHa

Following our skit the awards were handed out. This little toe-head little boy was killing me all night. He would not sit down and kept getting in the way of all my pictures! Including the one's his own mom asked me to take.

It was a stressful day but it was a good one. Scouting in our ward has been terrible! Very boring and no one comes. I was quite pleased that we were able to get 5 of our 9 boys out with their families. Maybe it was the food that brought them but everyone seemed to enjoy themselves. I'm sure hoping I can help change the attitudes on Scouting just a little over the next few months. These are suppose to be fun nights!

Blue & Gold

This upcoming Tuesday is our Blue and Gold. The theme this month is Invention and Resourcefulness. A few weeks ago Hunter brought home a paper bag full of stuff by his scout leader (me). There were 20 items in each bag and the scouts were to use at least 10 of the 20 items. They could add to it any way they wanted but the goal was to invent something. Hunter's bag had a toilet paper tube, a pink book mark, paperclip, styrofoam balls, pom poms, a sheet of felt, clothespins, wooden disks, a balloon, etc. We recently saw Dispecable Me 2 and since then that's all the kids talk about. He told me he wanted to make a minion with his stuff. I really didn't think he could do it but he sure showed me! He took a used #10 can and painted it yellow. He took his white balloon from the bag, blew it up, painted it yellow and stuffed it into the top of the can. Using the toilet paper roll he cut goggles and than raided the bathroom to find 2 more for the arms. He cut the pink book mark and used it as the tongue. The blue felt turned into the overalls. He used the pom pom's for the buttons. He painted the wooden disks and styrofoam balls black and used them for the shoes. He painted 1 finger onto a piece of paper and used the 2 clothespins for the other finger's holding his "Welcome to Scouts" sign. Not wanting the other hand to be empty to took one of our gloves and put it on. He used his paperclip for the name tag holder. He took one of my black pipe cleaners, cut it up and hot glued it to the balloon for his hair. I thought for sure he'd pop the balloon but he waited the perfect amount of time so the glue wouldn't pop his balloon but the glue would still stick. He found some large googly eyes and used duct tape for the wrap around goggle part. He was creative in using his resourcefulness. I was expecting some type of a robot or monster not a minion. I was very impressed.

Next month will be our Pine Wood Derby. Knowing that is the month the boys and Dad's do something together another Scout Leader thought it would be fun for the boys to make a cake with their mom's this month. We will be using the cakes for our dessert at the Blue and Gold. I wasn't terribly surprised when Hunter announced he wanted to make a minion for his cake. This time he wanted to make a evil minion, from Dispecable Me 2. We baked our cakes yesterday, froze them over night and decorated today. 

I didn't feel decorating a cake is a Sunday thing and by the time the kids get home from school we don't have a lot of time before bed time. So we chose today to make his cake. These cakes weren't suppose to be made by mom alone but by mom and son. He beat the frosting, he helped color the fondant. We both took turns cutting out fondant pieces to go over our cake. It took both of us working together to get the fondant onto the cake. Hunter made the goggle strap, the goggle and the eye. Madelyn wanting to help made the purple eye lid. 

While they were working on that I started cutting out the overalls. Hunter picked out and helped roll the design around the edge giving the overall's a better than plain look. Running out of fondant we used yellow marshmallow's (that's all we had) for the teeth. Thinking it still needed a little something we added a pocket and put Hunter's initial on it.

Hunter and Madelyn made the spikes for his hair. They had a hard time staying on the head so we broke toothpicks in half and slid them through the middle of the spike and down into the cake to hold them better. 

We ended up with a little split on one side but I was pretty pleased with the way it turned out. Especially with all the help we got!

We've had a good day. Hunter really learned how hard, how messy and how many dirty dishes are created when baking a cake like this. He didn't particularly enjoy sweeping up the mess on the floor either. It was fun spending time together. The cake didn't turn out exactly how we had planned but I think it works despite the missing feet. We ran out of fondant and I didn't have enough marshmallow's or powder sugar to make more. 

Now the hard part comes keeping the cake out of little fingers until Tuesday night.

Emily's Mystery Reader

Emily's 1st grade class has a Mystery Reader every Friday after lunch. Clues are read out loud to the class until the children guess who it is. It's a big secret and the kid's aren't suppose to know it's their parent or grandparent coming that day. The child than get's to go to the office to bring the Mystery Reader to class.The Mystery Reader brings a story to read and sometimes a treat to go along with it. 

This past Friday I was the Mystery Reader. In October I was also the Mystery Reader and chose to bring a Halloween book and treat. This time I chose one of Emily's favorite books, Pinkalicious. After the kids left for school I made hot pink cupcakes.

I then decorated them with hot pink frosting and hot pink sugar sprinkles.

Emily was so pleased with all the pink. 

 She said it was the perfect treat for Pinkalicious!