My New Niece... Amaya Clairissa

My sister Jen just had her 4th baby girl this morning, and they named her Amaya (pronounced A-my-a) Clairissa. She looks beautiful! I'm so excited for my sister. She has had quite the year this year with her little family, and to add to it, her little 2 1/2 year old Aliza had to go in the hospital for pneumonia Friday night, and will most likely have to stay for another 48 hours, so Jared is going back and forth between Jen & the new baby and Aliza. Thankfully my Mom drove up on Saturday and will spend a couple of weeks there helping out. What would we do without family? Especially Moms? My sister is such an amazing Mom! I admire her in so many ways and her girls are the sweetest girls. If you want to see the new baby, their blog is here. Congratulations Jen & Jared!

Brian & Jackson's Busy Day

Today Morgan & I left around 10:00 to run some errands, we didn't get home until around 1:00 and I could not believe all that Brian & Jackson had gotten done. We, or I guess I should say Brian is finishing the last 2 rooms in our basement right now, so I knew they would be working on that, but I had no idea all the rest of the stuff they would get done. When we came home I noticed our grass had been mowed, and it's green, and our bushes started to blossom too!!! I Love Spring! It was such a nice day.
Welcome to our Store! :) he he he So Brian had this cool idea a couple of months ago, in October if I can remember right, to do this cool can system in our basement. Well, the blonde part of my brain kicked in, and I could not get a clear picture of what he was wanting to do in our storage room, so he told me just to trust him, and this is the end result. I think there are 15 rows that slope down a little so the cans will roll when you take one out. The best part... it takes up hardly any room. We have loved it the past couple of months, & it has cleared up so much space. So this is what Brian did today... (picture below with my Vanna & Vanno White Children)
Vanny & Vanno White present to you the new shelves behind the door, there is hardly any space, yet there is a nice shelf system secured to the wall, & look how many cans it holds! I couldn't believe Brian had done this today... isn't it cool! I thought I was in my own little store. :) I think now I need to have a separate high shelf for cookies & candy. ;)


* I hope this doesn't sound prideful at all, Brian probably wouldn't be very happy if he knew I was posting all these neat things he done, & all his talents & skills, & hopes & dreams, and anything to embarasse him, but I talk enough about the kids & I, so I figured it was okay to post a little about him. :)

Vanna & Vanno showing you what they've picked from the shelves... yummy green beans. ;)

A day at the Park & the Museum

Yesterday I asked my parents if they wanted to go to the park with the kids and I for a picnic. I didn't realize that every child in our city would be there. We went to one park and their were so many kids, so we decided to go to a different park. On the way there, my Dad said he really needed a drink, so I told him we could go to "Johnny's Drive-Up" (a little convienent store that Brian grew up going to & getting penny candy, which they still have) :) So we go there and my dad says to my mom, (they are in the other car & Jackson got to ride with them) " I don't want to go to Johnny's, it's a house!" Then when my dad & I ran inside Jackson said to my mom, "I don't want to go to Johnny's House!" It was so cute! Something that Brian & his family would appreciate. :) We had such a nice time at the park, and the weather was gorgeous!
On Thursday my mother-in-law and I took the kids to the Children's Museum. She had Jeff & Brittany's kids for the day since Brittany had just her sweet baby boy Brody. :) It was quite the adventure getting them all settled in the car and we got to listen to "kid music" Wow, I don't think I want 5 of my own kids in car seats at the same time. :) They did really well though, and my favorite part was sweet little Jayden in the very back saying, "Grandma, I have to go potty" so we got to stop at the nicest 7-11 & they all smelled wonderful when they got back in the car. :)
More pictures of the park... Jackson had a blast! I think we'll be here a lot this summer.
Morgan by the slide, and of course she had to block the sun from her eyes. ;)

Happy St. Patricks Day

Happy St. Patricks Day! I didn't even think of something fun to do for dinner this year. Thankfully my sweet sister invited us over for a yummy dinner... unfortunatly her husband doesn't like green mashed potatoes or green milk... maybe next year. :)
The kids had fun dressing up in green. I sang the song to them that I learned when I was little..."Today is the day for the wearing of the green, Today is the day when the little people sing, Today is St. Patricks day, da da da da da da, do de do de do de wop, de de, de, dedle de doo (obviously I forgot the last part & 2nd verse of the song, but it did make them smile as their crazy mom tried to sing the song to them.)
Isn't this such a silly tradition- one day of the year we wear green! I went to Wal-Mart and I thought how funny this was that all of us random American's wear green just because of the 17th day in March. Although my sister in law got a nice surprise... she had her sweet little lucky charm (baby boy) this morning at 6:30. 2 weeks early!!! This little guy is full of surprises! He is such a cutie & We are thrilled to have a new nephew.

While I went to the hospital to meet our new little nephew the kids went to my parents house. Grandma helped them make green frosted cupcakes. Yummy!
Today Morgan's pre-school teacher called and said they had to cancel pre-school today because they had the flu. When I got off the phone I told Morgan I was sorry that she couldn't go to school because her teachers were sick. She said really happy: "Really! I don't have to go to school!" I said, "Yeah, did you not want to go to school?" And this is why she didn't want to go to school...
A couple of weeks ago we were talking about St. Patricks Day and Brian mentioned how a little leprechaun came to his school and flipped over all the chairs and left green hand prints all over the desks, walls, and ceiling, and of course left some little treats. Well, I asked Brian what he thought about it when he was a kid and he said, "I thought, wow, that must have been one mad little leprechaun!" Well, a week ago Morgan didn't want to go to school because she was afraid the leprechaun would be at her school.. I told her to call me if he was there, and I would come and pick her up, obviously he wasn't there, but since today was St. Patricks Day she was sure he would be there, and so was happy she didn't have to go in case she ran into him. :)
(Sorry if I told that story already) :)
Me & my cute girls. Jackson is taking the picture. I love being able to stay home with them. Even though some days are crazy and I loose my patience, I love them more than anything.

He Shouldn't Have told Me!

The other night Brian told me something he shouldn't have... He calmly said, "Guess what I saw today?" Me: What? Him: "I saw a MOUSE in the GARAGE!!!!" After I started breathing again I said, "You Did???!! Where???!!!!" He said, "I actually saw him twice, he's hiding under the outside fridge" Now at this point I started shaking... you know how you do when you almost hit a cat, or a bird almost flies into your windshield...yep just like that (not that either of the above things have happened to me) :) So, yesterday, I stayed inside all day... other then walking to my neighbors (in which I didn't have to go in the garage) all of a sudden I was afraid of EVERY little crack or empty space... what if there are mice everywhere... what if there is a nest full of little mice in the garage, just waiting to come out and attack me... Ugh, have I ever mentioned that I HATE mice! I can deal with snakes, spiders, lizards, etc... but MICE! No Way! When we first moved here, the people before us had left a nice little tally on the wall of how many mice they had spoted & killed in their garage... it gave me peace of mind to see 5 or 6 little marks... when we first moved in I was helping Brian out and mowing the backyard, when one of Cinderella's little friends got in my way & I didn't notice what had happened until my 2nd time around the yard ( I won't go into too much detail) I screamed while doing a crazy dance & ran in the house, leaving the rest of the yard for Brian to finish, since then, I scared them all off and we haven't had any... until NOW! I better get mowing again. :) I had promised the kids we would watch Ratitouee (sp?) yesterday, so all day MICE where on my mind... do I really dare go in my garage again? What if it jumps out at me... if I see it, we're moving! :)

The Good Old Fashioned Flour Game

Once upon a time there was a boy who had heard about the flour game, but had never played it, ALMOST every night, the boy would dream about the day that he would one day be able to taste the bland mushy gross taste of flour & saliva mixed in his mouth. :)
Years went by, and on a beautiful snowy day in March after a delightful 5 minute family home evening lesson where the little boys ( now a man) children sat like little angels & listened with their cute little ears perked & attentive the entire time, & sang the songs with out any fighting over who got to lead, or pray... his dream of the flour game came true. After the 5 minutes of perfectness, his sweet & adorable wife said, "I have a fun game we can all play" (thinking that she was the ONLY one who knew how to play the game) the boy (now a man) jumped to his feet and said, "Are you serious? I know what game we're going to play! I've always heard about this game & I've waited my whole life to play it, wow... you are fulfilling even more of my dreams" (okay, maybe I added that last part) :) The cute wife was completly surprised! They went on to play not 1, but 5 rounds of the Good Old Fashioned Flour Game. The children thought this was the greatest game ever & thought their parents were so cool! (let's hope this is what they always think of us. ) :) And the boy... well, he couldn't have been happier... his dreams had come true. :)
Jackson was sticking his face in the flour even before it was knocked down & Morgan followed. She thought it was a great idea, until she got the nice taste in her mouth & then she started looking a little sick. :)
We used yummy chocolate cadbury eggs because we didn't want the kids to choke on a penny.
And here is the Handsome Boy... fulfilling his life long dreams! :)

She Loves me...

Another Morgan story... Today Morgan came home from pre-school and we had this conversation

Morgan: Mom, something sad at school happened today.

Me: It did? What happened?

Morgan: When Carson's Mommy left, I went and played for a little bit, and then I went to the block table and I was sad.

Me: (thinking, maybe a kid was rude to her, or maybe someone said something that made her feel bad)
Why were you sad?

Morgan: (kind of starting to cry now) Because I forgot to give you a hug & a kiss, and I was sad because I was missing you. At this point, she gave me the biggest hug she has EVER given me... talk about melt my heart! She does love me! It must have been that BRA talk we had last night. ;)

So, here is what I have been working on for the past couple of weeks. I am SO ready for Spring! If you want to read more about all my digi-scrap stuff, & for a couple of freebies, go here (I don't know why this is all underlined...weird)