Rob and Amy Weaver Family

Christmas Break Take 2

2012-01-17T21:08:00.000-08:00

Continuing our Christmas recounting: after Heidi's wedding...

We made gingerbread houses! Wow, that was quite the project. My mom had visited us last year and participated in our family tradition of making gingerbread houses (a tradition from the Weaver's) and thought it would be a fun activity to keep all of us occupied. Since I did not want her to worry about making them and storing 13 gingerbread house pieces around her house the week before the wedding I offered to make them and bring them. I was very concerned about them breaking but should not have worried. We had some extra pieces ( I was prepared in case any broke) that I just tossed in the box when we went home, and they didn't even break!

Rob and I went to Winco that morning and purchased the candy. It was hard to know how much to buy for that many people! We had a lot extra but figured we could use it next year.

We had some discouraging issues with making the frosting (my mom's whisk attachment for her Bosch was broken and we needed something more powerful than a handmixer) but Jeremy came to the rescue by sticking a beater in the electric drill and making the frosting that way!

Once we all got going it was very fun!

My mom's kitchen table was the perfect size for the grandkids!

Rob's masterpiece

My niece Vanessa turned three a few days before Christmas. She had a very "princess" birthday. We are out of the princess stage right now but it got me excited to reenter it in a couple years.

My mom holding grandson Garrett and Rob holding Sydney.

She has wonderful sparkly eyes.

Christmas Eve!! The "kid" table.

Lining up Christmas morning to see what Santa brought.

Apparently we didn't get a picture of Seth or Sydney. Santa brought Sydney baby food. She loves to eat Cheerios now and has started to army crawl. She gets faster everyday and I am having trouble coming to terms with her growing up so quickly. I still think she should be about 4 months old.

So that was our December! Well, at least that is all the pictures we have of December. New Year's Eve/weekend we were lucky enough to have my sister Sarah and family stay with us. They were in town for the blessing of Jeremy's newest nephew. We just love having them around. It was fun to remember that the last time they were here was when Sydney was born!

So now we are on to January which is usually a very dreary month. This year, however, it has been full of sunshine!!! (no snow! still cold, mind you, but sunny!!) Hooray!

Heidi's wedding!!!

2012-01-13T16:12:00.000-08:00

Alrighty, I am finally posting about this!
My little sister Heidi married Sam Worsham on Dec. 20, 2011 in the LDS Temple in Sacramento, CA. It was such a fun day made extra special by the fact that it was our 12 year anniversary! (hard to believe)

It was so great to be able to have the wedding in Sacramento and not have to travel to Oakland.

Here I am with my brother Steve on that pleasant CA day.

My sister Wendy and family. (Notice the flowers blooming on the right- in December! CA- I miss you!!)

Seth!

Brenna with cousin Shannon.

Grant, Brenna, Kenneth and Shannon.

Sister Sarah and family.

The newlyweds with all of their Astle nieces and nephews.

The reception was at a beautiful country club.

Sarah and I. All of these pictures are from Rob's phone as our camera battery had died. It is one of those rechargeable ones so we didn't have time to charge it. If you would like to see more and better quality pictures check out my mom's facebook page. There are approximately 563.4 of them :)

Sisters, Grandma and mom

Heidi- this could be you in 12 years!! :)

We all stayed at my parents house (they are troopers! Let's see, that was 6 more adults and 11 kids, 8 of them 5 years and younger) and stayed through Christmas. (More pictures coming of that later). It was so nice to be together. Thanks mom and dad for letting us all stay there when you were preparing a wedding and Christmas.

All in all it was such a wonderful time to visit with immediate and extended family, and to share in the joy of Heidi and Sam's wedding. We are so excited for them and what the future will bring. I am not sure when we will all see each other again. My sisters are all spread out- one in New Jersey, one in Pennsylvania, and now Heidi will be in Iowa as Sam attends medical school. Thank goodness for blogs and texting and cheap phone calls.

Happy Thanksgiving

2011-11-30T15:17:00.000-08:00

We had a wonderful Thanksgiving and we hope you all did too.

Grant's kindergarten class had an Indian Feast one day and a Pilgrim feast the next. They made costumes for each one. The Indian feast consisted of jerky, popcorn, raisins and nuts. The pilgrim feast was stew, corn muffins, and pumpkin pie. I was able to help out with one of the feast. It was a lot of fun. I don't remember Seth or Brenna doing anything like that in Kindergarten.

The Saturday before Thanksgiving we were lucky enough to have a visit from our friends in Oregon who were driving through the state. It is good to see that even after 3.5 years our kids still enjoy playing together.

My parents joined us for Thanksgiving this year. The day after, my parents and I flew down to Salt Lake to visit with my sister who was having a bridal shower and some other events to get ready for her wedding next month. On Tuesday I decided that we should have our feast on Wednesday instead of Thursday so we could have a day to enjoy the leftovers! So we did. It was yummy both times. :)

Rob and the little boys relaxing after the big dinner.

My dad with his signature gravy.

Aren't my parents cute?

The works!

Because of our haste in preparing the feast a day early I only made three kinds of pie (but they were yummy!)

We feel so grateful for all of our blessings at this time of year.

Russ turns 3

2011-11-08T20:46:00.000-08:00

Russ turned three this week! It is hard to believe he is getting so big! He is completely potty-trained and likes to tell me he is "bigger." He sees all the things his older siblings get to do and always wants to participate so I often tell him, "when you're bigger."

We had Kristy and family, and Melanie (both of Rob's sisters) over to celebrate. In the morning when we all sang Happy Birthday to Russell he had the biggest grin on his face when he realized it was HIS birthday. He has been waiting a long time. Everyone in our family has a birthday close to someone else except for him. Clear back in May and again in the summer when Seth and Brenna had their birthdays he kept telling me it was his birthday. Well, now he finally got his chance.

I made him a football cake since he has been enjoying football lately. He likes to watch it with Rob on TV and play it downstairs in our basement. He throws his small soft football in a perfect spiral every time. He likes to have me "run" and then he will throw it to me as if he is making a play in a game. He also likes to kick it. Right before he begins to run toward the ball he puts his right hand up just like the kicker in a college game to signal he is ready to go. It is pretty cute.

Here is my nephew Jonah with our cutie Sydney.

Here is Russell sporting his new pajamas from Grandma Weaver.

I took this picture the day after his birthday when he was wearing his new clothes from Grandma Astle. He wanted to take a picture of me, too!

Thanks everyone for making his birthday so special!

This past weekend Seth and Brenna participated in a Sonatina Competition. Each student played in a private audition and two finalists and three Honorable Mentions were picked from each level. I am so happy to report that Brenna received an Honorable Mention! I was so proud of her because she wasn't really enthusiastic about doing it and was extremely nervous. I am so glad she was brave and gave it a try. Hopefully she will have more confidence now.
As a piano teacher I was helping hand out awards at the Honors Recital. I was able to give Brenna her ribbon (and squeeze a hug in there as well).

Fall Fun

2011-11-01T11:03:00.000-07:00

The leaves on our tree have been a beautiful color this fall. This is not the best picture, but hey- its pretty good for holding a baby and talking on the phone while taking it. I would take another but the leaves are almost gone now.

I had to snap a photo of these pretty flowers that decided to bloom for the first time about two weeks ago.

Friday night I had my Halloween piano recital. We planned on carving pumpkins afterward but we were all tired and a little sick (or sick and tired?) so we saved the task for Saturday. Wow- it is quite a task to hollow out and carve seven pumpkins. But we did it! They are all good sized pumpkins from our garden!

I made these disgusting looking jello worms to take to the street Halloween party later that afternoon, along with bone breadsticks.

Here is Seth at the party dressed as a wizard/Harry Potter/Napoleon wig dude.

Brenna as a bejeweled cowgirl.

Our cute little pumpkin.

Our cute little almost three year old who refused to dress up.

And our batman who lost his mask/cape.

Seth received the prize for best decorated bike. Brenna received best costume for her age group, but for some reason I don't have a picture of her. Our family received the best decorated house prize, but that is only because we were the only participants. (those jack-o-lanterns out front were the extent of it)

Our neighbors of course received best adult costume- they are holding our cute Sydney so I thought I would include their picture.

Here are the trick-or-treaters on Halloween night. They had already gotten some candy Saturday night at the Trunk-or-Treat. I tell you, it has been a fun-filled holiday weekend.

Now we can look forward to Thanksgiving!!

2011-10-25T20:51:00.000-07:00

On Sunday Sydney wore this beautiful dress Grandma Astle gave her. I can't believe she fits into it already!

She looked so adorable. She really liked playing with the dress. She would grab the silky top layer and stick it in her mouth.

Monday night we had some company over and made some little Frankensteins. (dyed pudding and crushed cookies). This fun idea comes from Mel's Kitchen cafe (whose chef just happens to be Rob's cousin- and my claim to knowing someone famous) We certainly love her amazing cooking blog. You can check it out at http://www.melskitchencafe.com/. Unfortunately the kids that I was trying to impress with this fun treat were a little grossed out by the green color and wouldn't eat it. (My kids ate it just fine- I guess they saw me making it and knew it was pudding!)

This little whippersnapper is just a few accidents away from being potty trained. We started training (again!) last week and this time he took to it much more readily. He has not had an accident in two days and has even started letting me know when he has to go. Woohoooooo!

Autumn tradition

2011-10-19T09:02:00.000-07:00

Monday night we made caramel apples! Ummmm they were so good.

Rob took over the task and was the chef for the evening. He created some beautiful and tasty apples for all of us. His expression portrays some slight annoyance. This was probably the sixth picture he had posed for as each previous shot I took turned out blurry. Does anyone else have that problem with digital cameras? I hold the button down half way until it focuses and then snap the picture, but it seems the majority of the time they come out blurry.

Anyhow, here are a couple non-blurry pictures of Sydney. She is such a big girl now enjoying her excersaucer.

Catch up

2011-10-02T21:18:00.000-07:00

Here are some pictures of what we have been up to lately.

Picking our first peaches off our tree.

We all participated in the Harvest Classic Fun Run. It was a one mile run around a park.

Cute kids!

Oh, boy!

2011-09-14T15:39:00.000-07:00

Yup, it has happened. We have experienced a broken bone. The doctor, after seeing our three boys, was surprised we didn't already know where the X-ray station was in the building. My guess is we will be visiting it again before all these yahoos are grown up.

Seth broke his wrist last night at soccer practice. The coach asked them to run backwards as fast as they could. Seth gave it his all and ended up falling backward. We didn't think too much of it last night. We brushed it off as a sprain, gave him some motrin and sent him to bed. This morning I could tell that it was really bothering him, though, so I decided to take him in to the doctor.

He has a buckle fracture on the radius (for you medical people out there). The doctor says it is a pretty common fracture and heals very quickly. Once it is healed he will never know it had been broken. I am thankful for that. So I guess for the next four weeks it is right hand only piano practicing! :)

Our Happy Baby

2011-09-12T20:58:00.000-07:00

Here are some pictures of our sweet baby. She is a happy girl. We are so glad she is part of our family.

Best Baby Ever!!!

2011-08-26T21:11:00.000-07:00

This little sweetheart gets the prize for best baby ever! That requires only one qualification in my book, and that is that she sleeps through the night! Woohoo!!!!! I have a baby that sleeps through the night before 12+ months of age!

Now, may I also mention that she is adorable, happy 99.9% of the time, and a sweetie pie. Who can argue with that?

The last month: camping, vacation, birthdays, baptism, blessing, school...

2011-08-12T13:13:00.000-07:00

Wow, after typing that title I can understand why I haven't had time in the last month to blog...

So here we go with a recap.

Rob took the kids camping one Friday night along with his sisters and family. I stayed behind with Sydney who was still quite little. I thought it would be such a great thing but actually I missed them a lot.

They went fishing in a stocked pond and Grant caught a fish!

The last week of July we headed to California for a family reunion at my parents house. It was so relaxing this year just staying at their house. With three grandbabies born within 10 weeks (Sydney being the youngest) staying at their home was the right thing to do this year.

We enjoyed the pool. Some of the younger ones were nervous about the pool but they enjoyed the wading pool!

My mom was afraid that my siblings without little kids would get a little bored just staying at the house every day so she rented "the Big Kahuna" water slide for one day. Wow, was it big! It gave quite a bumpy ride!

My Grandma Astle was able to attend. She has always been a great ping-pong player.

Russ and cousin Eli after a bath.

My sister Heidi is engaged! Here is her fiancee Sam reading a book to the grandkids. (Scoring big points)

My mom and Sydney.

Heidi, Sam, and some nieces and nephews. Sorry Heidi- the picture I took of just you and Sam turned out blurry.

Sydney Jane

Seth turned 10 while we were in CA!. Here he is on his birthday. Unfortunately he was not feeling very well that night. We ended up having cake and ice cream the next day when he was doing better.

A week after we got home it was Brenna's birthday! She requested a cat cake so this is what we came up with. (For Seth's birthday I copped out and bought a cake!) Her birthday was extra special this year because she turned eight! She was baptized the next day.

My parents drove out the day befor her birthday so they could be here for her baptism. It was extra fun to have them here for her birthday as well. We celebrated by swimming in our neighbor's pool.

Our stake does baptisms the first Saturday of the month. She lucked out since her birthday fell on the first Friday of the month so she could get baptized the very next day!

My parents and Brenna.

Rob's parents and Brenna. They are troopers and drove to UT to make Brenna's cousin' baptism that morning, and then flew to Boise to make Brenna's that afternoon.

Our fun family!

What made the weekend even more special was that we blessed Sydney the next day. When we got home from church I tried to get a picture of both girls in their white dresses, but Sydney would not be happy.

Wednesday, August 10, the kids started school! I know, it is crazy to start school in early August, but what can I do? They are going to a brand new charter school this year. There will definitely be some kinks to work out, and they are in portables until the permanent structure is built, but I think it will be worth it. They both came home pretty positive about it.

(Note Brenna's cute hair cut)

Brenna is in third grade, Seth in fifth.

Grant started kindergarten this week! His first day wasn't until Thursday. Russell still tries to do whatever his big brother Grant does. He will miss Grant this year!

Sydney is growing right before our eyes. She also likes to suck her thumb! I have never had a baby do that before and I admit I think it is adorable. (I know I won't think so in a few years). I just had to take this photo of her hanging out while we ate lunch today.

The past six weeks

2011-07-13T22:49:00.000-07:00

Whew! I finally got some pictures loaded- hooray! They are not in order but I am just going to go with it.

Over July 4th weekend we went to Rob's parent's house for a family reunion. We had a fun relaxing time except for the fact that I came down with a nasty cold. When we got home we were excited to pick the cherries from our three trees. We had so many we gave them away, Brenna sold some on the street corner, and we ate a lot ourselves.

This photo shows Rob and the kids (some of them) with his Grandma Walker.

The pirates on a fun treasure hunt put together by Grandma Weaver.

Aarrgh!

Sydney showing off her cute outfits, smiles, and -in some cases- frowns.

Oh yes- and Seth modeling our new used trampoline. Does that make sense? I told Rob that since we were having a baby we would be a bit housebound this summer and I would like to get the kids a tramp. We found one off cragislist the night before I had my baby!

My sister Heidi and her fiancee Sam came to visit us one weekend. We didn't get a picture of Sam- sorry!- but here is one of Heidi holding her niece.

Some well-loved bears enjoying the baby swing.

Ah- here we are getting back to the cute smiles. Sydney is starting to smile on demand now, and is starting to coo. She is also on her way to becoming pleasantly plump (just as a baby should be in my opinion).

And here we have another photo showcasing our cherries- just a mere fraction of the harvest. Yum!

Darn

2011-07-12T16:36:00.000-07:00

Posting more pictures on this blog has been one of my daily goals for about a month now. Today I finally sat down to do it and for some reason the pictures won't upload. I don't know what I am doing wrong. I have tried four times now. A window pops up and says the web page cannot be found, and something about a wrong address. ??? So, I guess I will try again another day -hopefully sooner than a month from now :)

Lots more pictures!

2011-06-02T18:48:00.000-07:00

Sydney Jane Weaver

2011-05-29T21:49:00.000-07:00

Well, here she is. This is Rob if you can't tell, and Amy I'm sure will fill in any details I miss. Sydney was born at 6:07 am May 29th 2011. She was 8 lbs 8oz and 21 inches long. She has blond hair and it looks like light eyes, so maybe blue. She came fast and furious, we barely made it to the hospital in time as Amy wasn't sure she was in labor or not. So we arrived and the hospital at 5:45 and she was born quickly afterward.
Amy is doing great and it seems Sydney is doing great also. Here are some pictures for your enjoyment.

Milestones

2011-05-23T20:08:00.000-07:00

Last week Grant "graduated" from preschool. He participated in a cute ceremony in which the kids sang songs and demonstrated some of the skills they learned throughout the year. I was surprised that he started asking when he could go to kindergarten right away. For a kid who never wants to go anywhere I was glad to see he is excited about school.

Grant is growing up fast! Here he is with his teachers. He wants to play soccer in the fall. He has been wearing the extra jersey from Seth's team all day today. He also told me tonight that he thinks he is ready for piano lessons. Oh boy.

Brenna reached a milestone this week (a little sooner than I expected). She has now joined Seth in wearing glasses. She is so super excited about them. She is sad that she only has two days of school left to show them off. (I know- it is crazy that our kids get out of school on Wednesday!)

She told me a week ago that she had to move to the front of the room to see the board so I scheduled her an eye appointment (we have had a lot of those lately) and sure enough, glasses were needed.

I think she looks pretty cute!

Our busy weekend

2011-05-15T21:27:00.001-07:00

We had a very busy but fun weekend.

This first picture is of Russ. He looked so cute in Grant's Buzz Lightyear shirt, patriotic hat, and floor duster that I couldn't resist snapping a picture. He was "helping" me on Friday to get ready for the next day.

Friday night Brenna had a dance rehearsal for her recital the next day. When we got home I took some pictures of her in her costume. Of course, the little boys wanted their picture taken as well.

She danced beautifully in both a ballet and tap number.

It is Grant's birthday and on Saturday we had a party for him. This was his first birthday party and he was very excited about it for a long time. After our trip to UT in March he kept saying he wanted to invite "the two Eli's" to his party (those are his cousins). We had to settle for inviting his preschool class instead.

Since I have resolved to make more of an effort at fun birthday cakes I had Grant look at pictures online with me for ideas. I soon regretted this since he kept changing his mind about what he wanted. In our search he admired several cakes that I was sure I could not replicate. I finally "clicked" on one and got interested in trying the technique.

I think it turned out really well...

I made the Buzz by doing a Frozen Buttercream Transfer- if you are interested in learning about it, click http://cakecentral.com/articles/73/how-to-create-a-frozen-buttercream-transfer.

Yes, it did take a long time, but the great thing about it is- you can make it ahead of time. And it is amazing what I get done at night when Rob is out of town ! :)

We had planned on having the party outside, but thanks to the awesome Idaho wind, we had to bring it in.

We danced to music, decorated cookies, had a dinosaur feet relay, and ate cake and ice cream.

Although exhausting, I believe it was a successful party.

On Grant's actual birthday, he got to open his presents from family. Rob and I got him a new bike. He hasn't tried it out yet, since it was raining today.

He has presents from Seth, Brenna, Grandmas and Grandpas, and mom and dad.

Happy Birthday Grant!

Carnival, Birthday, and Zoo

2011-05-13T10:18:00.000-07:00

Last Saturday the kid's school had a fundraising carnival. This annual event is looked forward to greatly in our house. Unfortunately I had to 'single parent' it this year as Rob had to travel to UT for a funeral. (His uncle, who had been sick for a long time, passed away).
Grant, Russ and Brenna loved the train ride. Seth enjoyed playing some of the new games this year in the 'Minute to Win It' section.

The next day (Mother's Day) was also my birthday. Rob overly spoiled me. He seemed very stressed about the double occasion but completely outdid himself. His sister Kristy was kind enough to invite us to dinner that evening. We were able to visit with Rob's mom who traveled home with him from UT and stayed for the day.

The kids made me adorable homemade cards, Seth gave me not one, but TWO coupon books (for helping with dinner, yard work, cleaning room, etc). It was a wonderful birthday/Mother's Day, complete with Strawberry Shortcake. Yum.

Grant put that sticker on my shirt and I forgot it was there. It was on one of his new shirts.

Yesterday Russ and I went along with Grant and his preschool class to the Zoo. This was our first time at the Zoo here. It was (finally) a beautiful day and I enjoyed every minute of it.

The boys enjoyed playing on this jeep and other climbing toys as much as looking at the animals.

Climbing on penguins...

lunchtime...

waiting in line for the merry-go-round with our friends.

One of the moms (also in our ward) invited us to carpool together. It was fun to chat and visit while we watched our kids play. That is something I have missed that I enjoyed all the time in Oregon. Ladies from CP- I miss you!

April 2011

2011-05-06T21:27:00.000-07:00

Things I like:

these yahoos...

these...

these...

I really like these purple tulips... oh, and the white tipped red ones...

these kildeer eggs in our front yard...

this cute little guy

(he was telling me the other night that he "found it". I didn't know what he was talking about but he came all the way down the stairs in dad's pants to show me how he had put them on. I am glad he didn't trip along the way.)

I really like these beautiful curtains that Rob's sister Melanie made for me. The pictures just don't do them justice. We had fun picking out the fabric and I had fun watching her sew it all together. :)

Yay for some color in a room full of black and brown!

Some things I don't like:

My big belly

Rob out of town-again.

I have three weeks left until my due date. I have been asked a lot lately if I am "ready." The answer is that I am ready to not be pregnant, but not sure if I am ready for the baby. I am ready to see what she is going to look like, though!

Easter

2011-05-03T10:13:00.000-07:00

Our camera is lost so some of these pictures were taken with Rob's blackberry so the quality is not quite as nice. The rest were taken by Kristy and emailed to me- thank you!

We colored easter eggs the Thursday before Easter since our weekend was too busy. Everyone had a good time. Russell enjoyed vigorously dropping his eggs in the dye. Grant enjoyed coloring all of his several times so they all ended up an army/dinosaur egg green.

The day before Easter we had an Easter Egg hunt in the backyard with the cousins. Kristy, Melanie and I hid the eggs while the kids stayed downstairs. Rob got home just as we were lining them up to get started- perfect timing. (he was attending a CE course)

Each kid had their own color of eggs to look for. It was actually a pretty nice day for the occasion. Since we have had only two days that have reached seventy degrees this year so far, the 62 degree weather felt pretty nice.

Russ inventing a new fashion with his Easter basket.

Rob showing off his gopher he caught in a trap he just set the day before.

Kami and Russ.

The weekend before Easter Rob's aunt and uncle Marilyn and Dan came to visit from Virginia. Russ took an immediate liking to Uncle Dan, especially when he shared his cake. It wasn't just the cake, though, because I offered some of mine to Russell, but he wouldn't have it.
That same weekend Seth and Brenna participated in the Certificate of Merit piano evaluation program. This is a program that originated in California. I participated as a student there. I am so happy that there are teachers in the valley that used to live in California and valued it enough to bring the program here. They perform pieces, technique, and sight reading for an evaluator, and take a written theory and ear training test.

They both scored very well and were selected to perform in the Honors Recital held this last weekend. Don't they look nice?

Spring Break and more

2011-04-14T21:21:00.001-07:00

My how fast time goes by! That is, unless I am thinking about how many weeks I still have left to be pregnant- then it seems to move pretty slowly. :)

I suppose I had better recap our Spring Break.

Our usual plan for Spring Break is to head to sunny, warm California. However, since my sister Sarah had a baby, my mom was in UT helping her. So, I decided to take the kids and go to UT. We stayed with Rob's brother Mike and his family.

Because Tami (Mike's wife) in pregnant and not feeling too well, and I didn't want to hang out at Sarah's with my kids since she just had a baby, I tried to keep our days pretty packed.

Here is a rundown of what we did:

We arrived Monday afternoon and that evening attended a Broadway Revue put on by the Draper Arts Council (of which Mike is the president). His daughter Grace was in the play and it was loads of fun. It was very impressive for a community production. My one regret of the night is that I didn't snap a picture of her in her costume. One fun surprise of the night was that I ran into some friends we knew when we lived in Ohio. It was so great to reconnect with them.

Tuesday morning we went to my Grandma's house and had a nice visit with her. She is doing well. Sarah came with her baby. I cannot believe that I did not take one picture of their cute little guy! If you want to see him- you can click on her blog to the right!

That afternoon we headed down to Provo and saw the Carl Bloch exhibit at BYU. It was amazing! However, I did not get to delve too deeply as my four and two year old did not fully appreciate the experience. :)

After touring the exhibit we headed to the bookstore to buy the kids some BYU gear. Then we went to dinner with my sister and her new "friend." I will post more about him later if need be ;)

My mom was with us for the day and it was nice to be with her.

The flowers were so pretty I made everyone stop for a picture. This next picture I took so we could text it to Rob. Poor guy was home working. (We were sort of rushed in the store and I couln't find a shirt Russ' size, so he is left out.) On Wednesday we went to a Children's Museum in Salt Lake City. The kids were very entertained and could have stayed all day if the little ones didn't get too tired. My mom came with Sarah's little Eli and he had a good time as well.

Grant really enjoyed the cash register.

Russell and Eli liked the water the best- although they got pretty wet.

You may notice there are no pictures of Seth. This is because he was upstairs in the older kid section the whole time. Up there he got to pretend to be a weatherman, make a "movie", and draw a comic strip among other things.

Wednesday afternoon we went to my Aunt Laura's house and visited with her. My kids always love to play with her kids.

Thursday we went to a Classic Fun Center in Sandy which was a blast with roller skating, bounce houses, arcade games, and a great playground. Afterward we came back to Tami's and relaxed! We headed back home Friday-well worn out and our quota of fun fulfilled.

Since then it has been back to real life.

Tonight Seth was a star in the fourth grade play about Lewis and Clark. He was one of the main characters-the dog that was on the expedition. He had a speaking part and even sang a solo- complete with backup singers! He did a wonderful job and really enjoyed it.

I am proud of him for taking the initiative all on his own to try out for the part. He practiced his solo and memorized his lines all on his own.

Today was a busy day and Iwas a bit stressed about getting everything done so we could get to the play on time. After Seth got home from school he said offhandedly, "What am I going to wear for a dog costume?" I about died of a panic attack right there. I did not realize that he needed to provide his own costume. In fact, my though process was something like this, "Son, you do realize that your mother has no sewing or creative ability, right? And you are telling me you need a costume two hours before you have to be to your play? You must think I can perform miracles. Where is the fairy godmother (aka Melanie) when you need her?" (She was not home yet, and Rob is out of town).

Luckily Brenna piped in with a great suggestion. Years ago Grandma Weaver had given Seth a hooded bath towel with a doggie face and ears on it. She reminded me of it and so we took the hood off and had him wear that. He also explained to me that it didn't have to be a full-body costume. So it worked out.

So that is what we have been up to. This weekend brings a visit from Rob's aunt and uncle who live in VA, and Seth and Brenna's annual piano evaluation. Wish them luck!

March

2011-03-26T13:14:00.000-07:00

The past couple of weeks we have taken several trips to the pediatric opthamologist. The day I was leaving to go to my grandfather's funeral I noticed that something seemed wrong with Grant's eye. I took him to the QuickCare and he was diagnosed with pink eye. I had a suspicion that was not really what it was and it turns out I was right. After I got back in town and his eye still seemed to bother him, I finally took Rob's suggestion and took him to an eye doctor.

Despite a rather noncompliant patient, the doctor was able to determine that something indeed was wrong in his left eye and referred us to the pediatric opthamologist. After taking a look she was not sure what it was either, but thought it may have been a foreign object stuck in there and thought she would see if it would come off. She was able to get it off (just a small speck of something). She explained that he had blood vessels growing towards the spot on his cornea where it was (which is apparently very bad). It is now clearing up well with the aid of some steriod drops and she hopes there will be minimal scarring (which means that his vision will be only slightly affected.)

His eye had not been red, there was no discharge, they weren't watery; his only symptoms were that he was sensitive to light and his eyebrows and forehead were furrowed a bit. I am so grateful for modern medicine that can take care of random things like this. I am disappointed in myself for not taking him to be seen earlier.

Luckily he is feeling much better and is a happier boy.

For an art project at school Seth made a paper-mache animal head. The assignment was to then take it home and make a puppet. As a true BYU fan Seth decided to make a cougar for his animal. In discussing the project with the rest of us it was decided it would be fun to dress the cougar up in a basketball uniform; specifically as Jimmer Fredette.

Thanks to Melanie's superior sewing skills the project turned out amazingly well. (Seth did help- a little). We took apart an unused teddy bear and adapted him for the cougar body.

Unfortunately, having our own cougar mascot did not help the Cougars Thursday night in their game.

We had a couple families over from our ward to watch the game.

Most of the men couldn't handle the stress and were pacing the room rather than sitting on the couch.

Our kids got accepted to a new charter school opening up this fall- right down the street from our house. The school is modeled after two other charter schools in our area. We are excited about the opportunity to try it out as the schools are in high demand and it is pretty difficult to get in (they do a lottery). I am very grateful that Grant will be able to attend kindergarten every day for a half day rather than every other day for a full day as he would in public school due to busing budget cuts.

It is our spring break and we are heading down to UT. We will be staying with Rob's brother Mike and their fun family, as well as taking a peak at my newest nephew!

I hope all of you are having a wonderful spring (hopefully with more sunshine that we are getting!)

Catching Up (Seriously)

2011-03-12T18:07:00.000-08:00

I apologize for not blogging more. Whenever Rob's computer is here I either forget or am too tired. :) So here is my attempt at catching up the last month and a half; the good, fun and the sad.

First off we have an adorable random picture of Russell Muscle.

Towards the beginning of February I had the privilege of attending the Sophomore Piano Recital of my little sister Heidi at BYU. What made this extra special was being able to see the teacher that I studied with (Heidi is also studying with her) the infamous Dr. Peery-Fox. Here we are together.
Heidi looked so beautiful that night. I could barely get a picture of her though, because she was swamped by fans! :) She is a social gal and had a full house that night.
She played so beautifully. I enjoyed every second of it. She is a wonderful pianist especially considering that she quit piano lessons for three years while in high school. She later came back to it and is very serious about it now. She practiced her fingers off getting ready for this recital (Dr. Peery does that to you) but boy did it pay off. As I was listening I remember thinking, "Did I ever play this well?" I enjoyed this concert so much it made me realize that I need to go see live concerts more often. Thanks Heidi for the wonderful evening.
Unfortunately I was back in Utah two weeks later under sad circumstances. My grandpa Astle passed away unexpectedly after a battle with a blood clot in his lung. I am so grateful I was able to attend the funeral. What a wonderful man he was.

My grandma is seen here with my aunt Marie and my great-uncle Lynn.
The funeral service was beautiful. It was nice to hear stories I had not heard before about my grandpa and to be reminded how much God loves us and has prepared a way through his Son for us to be together as families again.

My two sisters and I are all pregnant and due within 10 weeks of each other. I did not think we would be together during our pregnancies. Although I wish we could have been together under different circumstances, it was fun to get a picture. Sarah (on the right) is due 3 weeks from when the picture was taken, Wendy the middle of April, and myself the end of May.
Heidi had to join in the fun.
All of the siblings. It was so nice to see my brother Steve.
Later that night at Grandma's, she convinced us to have some ice cream even though we had been well fed with goodies all day. It just wouldn't be Grandma's without several flavors of ice cream. It was good to know that some things are still the same.

................................................................................................................................................................

We completed a big project that we have been planning on doing for a while. We bought some "serious" shelves for our storage room and organized it. As you can see from the "before" pictures, it was badly needed.

Hooray! We can walk in there now- and even find stuff!
We were amazed at how much stuff we have (baby clothes, baby gear, food storage, Christmas decorations...) Some day when we can get rid of all the baby stuff and hand me down clothes, we will probably have twice the room.

The inevitable has arrived

2011-01-29T15:10:00.001-08:00

Considering both Rob's family history and my own it was only a matter of time before Seth needed glasses.
He told me he couldn't see some things from the back of the classroom, and sure enough, glasses were necessary.
Luckily he was very excited to get them. They just arrived today. I think he looks pretty cute.

My newest love :)

2011-01-24T20:42:00.000-08:00

The day I have been waiting for for eleven years has arrived. I now own a grand piano. Hooray!
After years of saving and searching, it is now here!
While quite a bit larger size than I originally considered, I am pleased with my purchase. It is a Kawaii.
I realize that it takes up most of the living room, but oh well. I have put up several pictures at the request of my family.
We moved our upright downstairs so that the kids can practice simultaneously. Now they can sleep in a bit longer :)
(ignore messy counter)

I had to throw this photo in. Those boys sure love their dad. I sure love their dad, too. It is not every man who would be willing to let his wife take up the living room with a huge piano.

Catch up

2011-01-18T20:10:00.000-08:00

Still no new computer, but I realized I could load pictures on Rob's laptop so I asked him to bring it home tonight.

So, without further delay, here is a condensed recap of our Christmas vacation.

Christmas Eve we had our bishop's family over for dinner. We had a great time with them. They love music as we do, and brought their cello, violin, and saxophone to add to the performances that night. It was great! We sang Christmas carols out of my new Reader's Digest Christmas Songbook (thanks Sarah and Jeremy- a perfect present!). Then the kids dressed up and acted out the Nativity story.

Of course the girls had to be angels or Mary.

Russell didn't quite catch on but had fun anyway.
Seth as a wise man and Grant as a shepherd.

or is he a terrorist? :)
I guess we DID take a picture Christmas morning. Here are Grant and Russell with their fun new wagon from Santa.
Chowing down on candy (lovely)
This picture is out of order, but was taken when Rob's parents were visiting last weekend. As you can see, this horsey got quite the workout.
For the New Year's weekend we headed to Idaho Falls to visit with Rob's parents and several siblings. While there we helped complete a 2000 piece puzzle. Rob and I had already done two 1000 piece puzzles at our house, and I was thinking I was done. But, puzzles are very addicting. We couldn't stop until we were done.
Sorry people- I didn't rotate tonight. Another fun activity at Grandma's house- playing the Wii.

This picture is back at home. Last week Rob came home with a red velvet cake an orthodontist had bought for him at a bakery. Russell had fun as you can see. What you probably can't see are all the lovely red tints in his hair as a result of his fun.
The other news around here (besides the fact that somehow I turned on this underline and can't get it off) is that Rob's sister Melanie moved in with us! She will be living with us for half the semester and Rob's other sister for the other half while she does her student teaching at a high school in Meridian. She is teaching Home Economics classes. We are happy to have her!

Boy or Girl?

2011-01-13T13:58:00.000-08:00

We are having a girl!!!!!

We are very excited! Part of me is still worried that the ultrasound was wrong, but my doctor assures me she is 100% sure it is a girl, and if it is not she will come paint the room. That made me laugh.

So now we just have to pick a name :)

No pics :(

2010-12-29T18:37:00.001-08:00

I mentioned the other day that we did not take any pictures on Christmas Day. I realized that we did take some on Christmas Eve but alas, our computer is suffering from old age. Our last remaining USB port is no longer working. Therefore, I cannot get the pictures off the camera.
But do not despair.
In a few weeks I get to pick up a computer that Seth was "given" through the school somehow. I don't know exactly what it is, but he came home very excited one day with this application to fill out for a computer. I guess some organization exists that wants to make sure all kids have access to a computer in the Treasure Valley. The kids just had to fill out an application and write a letter to be eligible. Now, I do not really agree with this whole idea. I mean, we are slashing education funds right and left but are giving away computers? Seth was so excited, however, I didn't want to disappoint him. I figured it wouldn't hurt to let him enter the program. I thought for sure with the limited amount they were giving away that there was no way he would actually get one. I also figured they would give them to more financially needy children. So imagine my surprise when I got a letter telling me to pick up the computer on January 19!
I guess it was good timing anyway.
So, no pictures for a few more weeks.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

2010-12-28T14:57:00.000-08:00

I hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas. I know we did. We have been "busy" relaxing and eating yummy food! I would post some pictures of the big day, but, um, well, yeah we didn't take any. (oops!)

Have a wonderful New Year!

Last week

2010-12-15T19:15:00.000-08:00

Last week my mom visited for a couple days. We had a great time. Rob was out of town one of the nights so I was glad to have company.

That particular night Brenna had a Christmas concert. All the 1-3 graders performed songs for their parents. My mom was happy to be able to see it.

Brenna did a great job singing and doing the actions for her songs.
The boys did not want to be left out of a picture.

Friday night as soon as Rob returned home we proceeded with our annual tradition of making gingerbread houses. This is a tradition from Rob's side of the family and it was neat to share it with my mom. She didn't think she would decorate a house but eventually gave it a try. (I don't know how she always escapes our camera when she visits.)

I felt this was the best year yet. Seth and Brenna could handle their own, and Grant was independent for the most part. The best part about it is that we put Russell to bed early because he hadn't taken a nap that day!

I even had time to sit down and make one!

Rob's always takes the prize. He is very creative (and patient).

Russell has been so cute lately. He likes to sing 'Jingle Bells." When I start singing it with him at bedtime he gets excited and starts to sing. Shortly after he begins, he puts his hands on my lips and tells me to "shhhhh". He wants to sing it by himself! That is pretty entertaining since he doesn't really have the tune, and the pronunciation is more "jing-no-no" than "jingle bells." Of course, when I try to record it, he won't do it.

'Tis the Season (hooray!)

2010-12-03T21:51:00.000-08:00

Hooray for Christmas time!

As I mentioned in our last post, we got our Christmas tree. We got it when the kids and Rob were home because of a snow day. That means that the tree was covered in snow. So when we got it home we put it in a bucket of water in the garage to dry out. However, it kept falling over. (Did I mention it is a BIG tree?) So we just decided to bring it in and put lots of blankets and towels underneath to catch the melting snow.

Now the thing that makes this an even more interesting story is that Rob hurt his back last week pretending to be young again, and he is still not 100%. I kept inquiring on whether or not he could handle getting a tree. He gave me the ok so we went ahead.

We planned on a seven foot tree. We actually don't have a lot of room for a tree in our living room. Last year we tried to find a narrow one. This year, we told the tree sellers what we wanted, they helped us find a tree, and it cost about what the other trees had cost us in the past.

It wasn't until we got home that we realized how big it was. We measured it, just to make sure it would fit in the house. 9ft 2 inches! And it is not very narrow. But guess what? It is a beautiful tree and I love it, even if it does take up half the room.

See?
Putting the last of the lights on was a bit tricky!

Seth was sweet to help Russ put ornaments on the tree. All the kids enjoyed that activity, of course. I still need to redistribute the ornaments :). Russ decided he liked them better as balls and started throwing some around the room. (This is why we have the plastic ones, people.)

So far Russ has been interested enough in the tree to not notice the presents underneath. We will see how long that lasts.

I hope you all have that Christmas spirit as much as I do!

Our Thanksgiving

2010-12-02T10:03:00.001-08:00

Rob's brother Mike and his wife Tami and five children came to stay with us for the Thanksgiving weekend. His parents and sister Melanie came and stayed with his sister Kristy. They each had a long, delayed arrival due to the weather, and an even longer trip home, but we are glad they made the sacrifice to come and visit.
The feast turned out wonderfully! The turkey was done on time and we had tons of food which meant minimal cooking the rest of the weekend!

I tried hard to get everyone together at a table, but it was not to be. So, here is the adult's table (plus a few of the younger ones- notice a posing Kami in the bottom right corner.)

And here is the kids table.

Here is Grace surveying the TEN pies we had for dessert. YUM!

True to Weaver form there was much game playing throughout the weekend.

Several hours after dinner, when we had some more room in our stomachs, we dug into the pie.

Two nights ago it snowed for about 12 hours straight. The kids got a snow day (our first in Idaho!) and we had fun playing out in the snow all day.

An example of the snowfall accumulation. We have not had this much snow since we moved here.

Most of Rob's patients called to cancel, so he was home early. I seized the opportunity and made us all go get a Christmas tree. If we had not done it, we would not have had time for two weeks! So, despite the tree being quite a bit bigger than we thought, it looks great. :) And it smells divine!

Last night while I was preparing dinner, Russ was busy.

I hope all of you had a wonderful Thanksgiving. I have so much to be thankful for. The words of a poem in the newspaper really struck me that day. I can't remember it perfectly ( I wish I had cut it out) but some of it was like this:

When you wake up to your alarm clock in the early morning, be grateful you can hear.

When the sun shines in your eyes, waking you up in the morning, be grateful you can see.

When you have a large heating bill, be grateful you are warm.

When your clothes are a little snug, be grateful you have enough to eat.

Anyway, I can't remember it all, but it kind of puts things in perspective, eh?

The Birthday Boy!!

2010-11-09T18:49:00.000-08:00

Russell turned two years old on Saturday. I think he had a fun day.

We had a fairly busy day with Brenna's basketball game, Seth's piano competition, and other things. So we snuck in the birthday celebration at dinner time.

He received a new outfit and Thomas train, some bath toys, pajamas, some money and a fire engine. The older kids had just as much fun with his presents as he did!

I was inspired to step up my birthday cakes after seeing Melanie's (Rob's cousin) amazing cakes on her cooking blog (http://www.melskitchencafe.com/) so I attempted this train cake since Russell loves trains. Aside from the fact that the engine looks like a boat, I think it turned out okay.

He was very adorable when it came time to blow out the candles. (And yes, I forgot to buy candles, AGAIN, so we had to improvise.) He just blew very softly.

We sure are glad he is part of our family.

Halloween!

2010-11-04T20:33:00.000-07:00

We had a fun Halloween weekend. My mom came into town on Thursday so she was able to be there for all of the fun.

Friday night our ward had a Trunk-or-Treat. Here are our kids with some friends. Seth was an army guy, Brenna a princess, Grant batman and Russ a turtle.

When the candy gathering was over the kids plopped down in the car and started feasting.

Saturday afternoon I had a piano recital for my students. They all wore their costumes and played Halloween songs.

That night after carving pumpkins we went trick-or-treating to some friends in our ward. Brenna had decided to be a witch that night. Russell didn't get to go this time.

We had a great time with my mom. She is like super woman- so helpful! She helped me clean my house for the recital and did Brenna's hair Sunday morning when I totally spaced it! Apparently we were so busy I didn't get a picture of her. Thanks for coming mom!

Number 5 is on the way!

2010-11-01T11:53:00.000-07:00

Hey everyone!
We would like to announce that we are expecting our fifth baby on May 22! Hooray! We are very excited! What makes this pregnancy even more fun is that both of my married sisters are pregnant as well. Sarah is due in March, Wendy in April, and myself in May. My mom will have a busy spring!

More pumpkin patch and other happenings

2010-10-26T20:47:00.000-07:00

Remember that cold miserable pumpkin patch experience? Well every other day before and after that has been gorgeous! So later that week we tried again, this time with the whole family and Rob's sister's family. It was a gorgeous day and we were able to do some activities we hadn't done before.

The corn box was still a popular spot.

And the maze. Seth went with Kristy's boys to the corn maze. It was huge!
Grant and Russ had both begged to ride the train during the preschool trip so this time they got their wish.

The jump house slide was awesome!

The boys had a good time with the pumpkin launcher.

Looking pretty tall...

One Saturday on a whim we got some bark for these planter areas in our back. We couldn't stand the weeds any longer :). It was amazing how much better it looked instantly!

(Here is an after picture...)

halfway done...

Before...

Last Sunday the kids very eagerly helped me make cookies...pumpkin cookies!!

Today I canned applesauce. Grant was a super helper and cranked the apple peeler for all of the apples! His little arms kept getting tired so I would switch it around on the table so he could use a different arm. He did not want to quit, though! Russ thought it looked like fun, too, so he helped on the last few.

Preschool Pumpkin Patch

2010-10-12T20:38:00.000-07:00

Grant's preschool class took a trip to the pumpkin patch on Monday.
We experienced a hay ride,

selecting a pumpkin,

playing in a box of corn kernels,

playing on the tires,

and a much needed cup of hot chocolate when we got home.

I know the pictures make it look like it was a warm sunny day. Unfortunately what you cannot see in the pictures is the dependable Idaho wind blowing at 15 mph that chilly morning making it a very, very frigid morning. We were not dressed for the weather and were very happy when it was time to get in the car and go home. Hopefully we will find a chance to go as a family this season so Grant can have a better time.

We love our Backyard

2010-10-05T20:25:00.001-07:00

Last week-and actually most of September- was 90 degree beautiful sunny weather. I loved it of course. We swam in our neighbor's pool, got out the slip-n-slide... it was great. Here are some pictures of the little boys enjoying the grass.
There is something fascinating about turning on and off the hose... apparently.

Grant a little tuckered out after an afternoon of play.

This was taken one Sunday afternoon while the kids were entertained by an animated Bible story on the LDS church website.

My kids have all been bitten by the bookworm. I know I have posted similar pictures before, but here we are again. Seth has had the book reading fever for a year now, but Brenna has just caught it in full force. She read TWO chapter books just today. In fact, they were both begging me after dinner to let them go read. What is a mom to do? I finished up the dishes so they could read. As you can see, their younger siblings followed their lead.

Grant has been so excited about these monster teeth he got from a friend. He actually wears them all the time. I have never known a kid to tolerate them in his mouth for long.

I love Russell's hat and amazingly, so does he! It reminds me of my good friend in Oregon who always had her three cute boys in matching plaid Old Navy hats (love you Kari!). He wears it all the time, and it is usually so low on his head I am not sure how he sees where he is going.

This week has cooled off considerably. I guess I have to accept the fact that summer is over. Today was a gorgeous fall day, though. You know the kind that is crisp and sunny? It was a great day to go out and get some yard work done. I started pulling up my garden today.

Here is a summary of our harvest:

35 quarts of green beans canned

30 quart bags of green beans frozen

10 quart bags of corn frozen

4 quart bags of zucchini shredded and frozen (lets not mention all the ones that just got thrown away because no one wanted them including me!)

15 pints of salsa, canned

4-6? pints of pickles (we will see if they are any good)

4 quarts of pickled beets

4 quart bags of beets, frozen

and let's not forget the many things eaten fresh: corn, beans, carrots, onions, peppers, cucumbers, tomatoes, strawberries, raspberries, lettuce, peas, potatoes... (and the five pickings of green beans I have given away- they are still producing!)

It was a fun garden, but I am glad it is almost over :) Brace yourselves- I am going to make a positive comment about winter:

ahem... One good thing about winter is weeds don't grow.

There, I said something nice.

That's all.

2010-09-21T20:53:00.000-07:00

Here is Grant on the first day of preschool! He was pretty nervous but is now a pro. Staying true to preschool age fickleness he went from saying it wasn't fair that he didn't get to go everyday to announcing he would never go again all in the three minute ride home.

WARNING: the next pictures may distress you if you do not like to see messy toddlers!! (Heidi)

Okay- I warned you. Russ does not like his hands dirty so when he eats he wipes them on his hair! This night was particularly bad- mashed potatoes!

Russ and Grant both love to play with their trains. A small circle is the perfect size for Russ.

Grant can handle a larger one. If you are a train track builder you will realize what Grant pointed out to me- he couldn't get his train on part of the track. I never did get it fixed before he wrecked the whole thing!

Cutie! (and he knows it!)

2010-09-07T14:06:00.000-07:00

This is a common sight at our house lately:

According to Seth, he is "all about reading this year."

We have also been enjoying a lot of this...

and this...

I love having grass! It is so great!

We are beginning to think how lucky we are to have a big ditch in our back yard. The kids love to play in it.

2010-08-28T13:19:00.000-07:00

Here are my school kids before leaving one morning.

The little boys wanted to be in a picture, too.

They all grow up too fast.

Picture!

2010-08-23T07:50:00.000-07:00

As I was blogging about the reunion my sister-in-law Christie was doing the same thing! So here is a picture I pirated from her blog of the cute little people Kristy made for all of us to be King of the Hill. Sadly- I was never King of the Hill. I guess I won a game or two but always forgot to put my person on the hill. :) (If you have no idea what I am talking about then you need to read the previous post about our family reunion.)

Weaver Reunion

2010-08-22T20:14:00.001-07:00

Well, here goes. I am going to blog about our reunion even without any pictures. None of Rob's siblings have blogged about it either so I can't pilfer pictures from them (come on, guys who actually had cameras there- help me out!)

Let's see- We arrived at Rob's parent's house Saturday evening, July 31. The party had already started as Ryan and Julianne and Mike and Tami were already there with their kids (and Melanie- no kids). Everyone else arrived Sunday evening just in time for family pictures. Aha- I am going to be able to post a picture. Melanie put some on her Facebook page- here I go to steal them...

Woohoo- three cheers for Melanie! Too bad they are so small.

Monday: We went to a newer Business Park which had a nice waterfall feature thing that we raced rubber duckies down. The kids enjoyed that quite a bit. Afterword we went to the river and fed real ducks. That afternoon was spent playing games at Grandma and Grandpa's house. That evening Jeanette (Rob's mom) gave a wonderful Family Night Lesson on family history. She told stories and showed pictures of her parents and grandparents, and Dave's parents and grandparents, and then shared some special characteristics of each of her children. She also had each of her children share what they admired about their spouse, particularly when they first met them. It was fun to hear what everyone had to say, and fun to learn about Weaver ancestors that I didn't know about. Great job Jeanette.

Tuesday: Most of the group traveled to Lava Hot Springs. Now I have heard about this place since becoming a member of the family. I always envisioned it like a swimming hole up in the mountains with hot water, you know, like in that movie Dante's Peak. Oh, no- it looks and feels just like a normal pool (just the largest pool I have ever seen) and it has fun water slides for the daring as well as high dive platforms for the insane. :)

See the slides on the right that go over the road? My bravery was not with me that day so I only attempted the weakest of the two. Now look towards the left at those tall blue and white platforms- yeah, people actually jumped off those. Or, if you are really crazy like my brother-in-law Ryan, you do a backward flip/layout thingy off the top one(with very nice form I might add).

(Have you noticed I have already included 4 photos? -yes!)

Wednesday: We went to the zoo and park where they have little kid rides. That afternoon we played some Family Olympic Games with events such as marshmallow shooting and shot putting bean bags with your feet-games which are very unique and yet ubiquitous (and fun) to Idaho. Mark, Christie and Rob were in charge of this event and they did a great job making it family friendly. The kids participated and enjoyed it. That night Rob encouraged us to go to the church and play indoor soccer in the gym. It was a great workout!

Thursday: This was Brenna's birthday! She turned seven! For the past four years or so, the Weaver reunion has been during Seth's birthday. Brenna's is just a week and a half later and each year the party is over right before her birthday. So this year everyone was gracious enough to plan the reunion over her birthday so she could celebrate with all her cousins. Thanks, everyone, for supporting Brenna! In the morning the ladies did a craft while the guys played kickball. The craft was tying water ballons onto flip flops for the girls. They were very colorful and cute. We also suprised the guys by filling up water balloons and pelting them as they came home. It was quite fun. :)

That afternoon we had Brenna's party. Grandma Weaver owns two blow up water slides so we set those up in the backyard. We also played some games with the kids such as water balloon toss and water balloon tag. Later in the evening we did a pinata. Rob and I got her a new bike for her birthday. Because we couldn't very well conceal a bike on the way over, we just gave her a picture of it and she got it when we got home. She also received a recorder, a hand-crocheted stuffed kitty, a giant sized activity/coloring book from Grandma Weaver and a BYU shirt from my parents (go Cougs!). I feel it safe to say that she had a memorable seventh birthday!

That night was skit-night (another very fun Idaho activity). Rob's brother Mike had a large black plastic bag and called random people to come up and select an item from the bag. Then he gave us our groups and we were to come up with a skit using those props. I am always impressed by the creativity of the Weavers and this night was no exception. Where I completely draw a blank they come up with these grand ideas. For example, Rob and Mark's group did a parody of the Old Spice commercial with the theme "Is your grandma's house as fun as ours?" It was so hilarious we demanded a redo. My group took our inspiration from a squirt gun and a long sockish thing that looked like a sling shot. Basically the plot was some scientists created an elixir that would make someone big and strong, they accidentally activate a time machine in a neighboring office and get sent back to Biblical times. They meet Goliath who is a scrawny kid and inject him with the elixir- you can imagine the rest. Quite an entertaining night.

Friday: I think the reunion was officially over but everyone wanted to stay around so we had a nice relaxing day. In the morning we played kickball and when that got too hot we moved in to the church and played some volleyball. I honestly can't remember what we did that afternoon. Probably played games. The Weavers are huge gamers. The top commonly played games: Rook and Settlers of Catan (and all the variations.) In fact, Kristy and Melanie had a very organized and fun system for game playing recognition. Kristy somehow put everyone's face on a cute little person cutout and had them sticking on a cupboard door. Then, right next to it, she had a picture of a hill. So, if you won a game, you got to put your character on the hill and be "King of the Hill" for that moment- until someone else won a game and booted you. Also, they made charts for all the different types of games: settlers, rook, outside games, wii, volleyball, etc. and when you played a game you put a participation sticker by your name. If you won a game you put a gold star sticker by your name. Once you had five participation stickers, or two gold star stickers, you got a prize. The kids really got into that.

Everyone did such a great job with their assignments. We all had turns cooking meals and cleaning up and it went smoothly. Dave and Jeanette were so gracious to have us all in their home. Considering there were 38 of us (I think) in one house it went very smoothly. I am so glad I married into such a wonderful family. (Who ever knew Idahoans had so many ways to have fun!)

The Last of Summer

2010-08-21T20:14:00.000-07:00

My kids started school this week (sniff sniff) and I miss them a lot. I haven't blogged in a while mostly because I don't have any pictures. However, since I haven't been motivated to take any pictures, I have decided just to blog anyway.

First off I would like to recap a fun party we had before our latest family reunion. The idea for this party hatched during the first week of summer when Seth was adjusting to free time and was a little bored. He and Brenna are both very creative writers (I was cracking up when I read Brenna's writing folder she brought home on the last day of school) and I wanted to encourage that over the summer. I always have grand plans of doing a little reading, writing and math over the summer with the kids- not always too successful with that. Anyway, so I thought it would be fun to have Seth enter a writing competition. (he is quite competitive). So I tried to find some online ones for kids but wasn't too successful so I came up with the idea of doing my own competition with kids we know. Then, I thought it would just be more fun if we turned it into a party and let the kids be the judges. So, crazy me, I planned a writing party in between two family reunions and two birthday parties!

I sent out invitations with instructions to write a short story (any topic) and bring it to the party without a name on it. I wanted the stories to be anonymous. As it got closer to the party, though, I thought each kid should read their own story, because, lets face it, first graders are atrocious spellers. Brenna was reading her story to me after she wrote it and even she had trouble figuring out one of the words. So I decided to just put all the stories on the bench in front of the fireplace and then let each kid "pick" which one they wanted to read when it was their turn. I figured they would all pick their own and they did (except for Brenna- she wanted to read someone else's colorful, illustrated one) so it worked out nicely. Then they all voted on their favorite and we had prizes for the top three winners.

It was a fun experiment- I only wish I had thought to take a picture-at least one little picture! There is something about having ten kids over that makes it hard to think of such things. :)

Okay- that is it for tonight. I just had time for a quick post. Next up I need to post about our fun Weaver reunion (to which we forgot our camera at home-ugh!)

2010-07-30T21:28:00.000-07:00

I know a missed a post yesterday. Unfortunately I ran over our new little kitten with the car yesterday and she died. I was very traumatized and did not feel like blogging about a birthday party. The kids amazingly enough seem okay. That is all I can say about it right now.

Birthday Boy

2010-07-30T21:04:00.001-07:00

Monday Seth turned nine years old. We had a party for him on Saturday. We were hoping the backyard grass would be ready for the party, but it was still a little young. So we set up some slip 'n slides and wading pools in our front yard. It was nice and hot that day.

We played an obstacle course relay where the kids had to put on a large wet t-shirt and dunk their head in the wading pool, squirt Seth nine times with a squirt gun, go on the slip 'n slide, etc. It was fun!

The best part of a party- cake and ice cream!

Monday for his actual birthday we had Rob's sister Kristy and family over for dinner. Seth of course enjoyed opening his presents.

I had to include this cute little face. He must know that every time the camera is pulled out, it eventually get directed at him.

Seth received some army men for his birthday and set up a war zone with the neighbor boy.

Astle Vacation Part Three

2010-07-28T20:57:00.000-07:00

After one last water basketball game we headed up to Lake Tahoe. My parents have rented a cabin up there in North Star for the past four (I think) years. It is great because it has 7 bedrooms and 7 bathrooms- more than enough!

We didn't do much up there on Wednesday- just got settled and hung around the cabin.

We sort of have our favorite activities while up there, but this year decided to try a new hike. We did the Skunk Harbor hike which takes you down 1 1/2 miles to a small harbor on the lake. Years ago some rich guy (name??) built a nice house down there for himself and his wife. The materials had to be boated in-anyway- it was a great destination at the end of the hike. We ate a picnic lunch, played in the water and climbed on rocks. Some of our group even got their toes nibbled on by a giant of a crawdad! I didn't get a picture of him. Bummer. If you want to see him you can read Sarah's blog- ha! I am too lazy to pilfer her picture tonight.

Here are Heidi and I at the start of the hike.

The only trouble with hiking downhill first is that then you have to go uphill back! It was quite hot and there was not a lot of shade- but we made it!

Here is the harbor-

That afternoon some of us swam in the pool at North Star. Later that night we roasted marshmallows on my dad's fire pit. It was great fun. There are some marshmallow roasting pros in our group!

Here are some random pictures of the kids in the cabin.

The next day- Friday- we went to our favorite beach- Sand Harbor. The past few years we have been there in June when it was still quite cool. That has its benefits in that we had the beach pretty much to ourselves, but we preferred the weather this year even though there were A LOT more people sharing the beach. We like Sand Harbor because it has actual sand and the water is very shallow for quite a ways which is perfect for the kids. And this year, the water was actually..........NOT FREEZING! As in, it didn't shock your bones and take your breath away when you dipped your toe in. For those of you that have been to Lake Tahoe- you know that this is amazing. Actually, my sister Heidi didn't agree with me. She informed me that she does not live in Idaho and therefore has not become somewhat immune to cold as apparently I have. She may have a point there.

These two cute kiddos had a blast playing together. We had two little watering cans in our sand toys and they must have spent hours going into the water- filling them up, and then coming back to the sand and dumping them out. Grant and Shannon- they are 3 months apart.

Another new activity we tried this year was roller skating. In the village at North Star they have an outdoor skating rink surrounded by cozy chairs and fire pits. In the winter it is an ice skating rink, and in the summer- roller skating. It was a blast! None of the kids had done it before so we had our hands full helping them. Seth got the hang of it (he is the oldest) and everyone else made a lot of improvement. I think the adults had fun even though they were helping a lot- thanks Sarah, Jeremy, Heidi, and Steve for helping my kids! Rob stayed at the cabin with Russ and Grant who went to bed.

I didn't get a picture of him but my brother Steve was so nice in helping Brenna skate. He took her around quite a bit even though he didn't have skates on. What a guy.

The skating crew: Wendy, Shannon, me, Seth, Jeremy, Sarah, Heidi, Kenneth, Mike, Brenna and Steve.

The first afternoon at the cabin the kids drew all over the driveway with sidewalk chalk. They even decorated this rock in honor of the reunion (or I guess it was Heidi- big kid!)

My sister Heidi is so helpful with all my kids! She loves to play with them and they love her so much! When she left to go to BYU and we would go visit my parents my kids were pretty sad that Heidi wasn't there anymore. Heidi you are great!

Here are Seth, Brenna and Heidi along with Wendy's three kids- Kenneth, Vanessa, and Shannon.

All in all it was a wonderful trip to Tahoe. I think it was my favorite time up there. I am grateful to my mom and dad who make this fun time happen every year. It is a lot of work but it is worth it.

Astle Vacation Part 2

2010-07-27T20:56:00.000-07:00

After the big Salt Lake reunion, Rob flew home to work for the week. My dad and Heidi also drove home that Tuesday. My mom stayed with me and we spent that day visiting with my sisters Wendy and Sarah. Wednesday my mom and the kids and I drove to her home in California.

Here is a pic of their gorgeous backyard (nice picture- Sarah!)

We had a great time relaxing each day by the pool. Friday night Rob flew back in to join the fun, and everyone else arrived Saturday (except my brother Steve who came Tuesday).

We all sang together in church that Sunday which was really neat. The girls usually sing, but this time we included my dad and the son-in-laws. It was great! A bass, baritone, and two tenors- perfect! Now if only some of us women were true altos :)

The next few days included some water basketball, lots of swimming, and a fun water kickball game! Thanks to Rob's fun Idaho background-he suggested this game and we all had a blast. The bases are wading pools with a slip 'n slide in to home plate. Just a word of advice if you ever want to play: kicking a kickball in barefeet really hurts- so try a softer ball!

Tuesday my Aunt Marilyn drove my Grandma Stephens up from Modesto for lunch. It was great to see them and so nice of my aunt to save us a 1 1/2 hour drive each way on top of all the driving we were already doing. We enjoyed some fascinating stories about my Grandpa that I had never heard before.

demonstrating the game...

Here are the cute little one year olds. They were all born within a six month time period. Russ is the oldest, followed by Wendy's daughter Vanessa (we keep having opposite gender, same age kids) and then Sarah's boy Eli.

My grandma with some of the kids.

Monday night was Heidi's 20th birthday. It was so fun to be there. We put her in charge of family night that night and she did a great job! She definitely secured her position as favorite aunt (not that it was in jepoardy at all)

Tuesday night we took family pictures under the big oak tree. Wednesday we went to Lake Tahoe- that will be Part Three.

I have much more to post about so I am going to try to post every day since we are leaving on yet another trip this weekend. I will get too far behind if I don't step it up.

'Till tomorrow then...

Astle Vacation Part 1

2010-07-25T17:53:00.000-07:00

We spent two weeks with my family. I am going to follow my sister Sarah's idea and blog about it in parts. It seems less overwhelming that way. In fact, I will probably be pirating some of her pictures from her blog. Maybe I should just save us all some time and put a link up to her blog instead- haha! Okay, I won't do that- but it is tempting!

First off we went to Salt Lake City for a BIG Astle family reunion. As in, my dad's parents and all of their children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren. We stayed at my sister Sarah's house for the weekend.

Saturday morning started off with a yummy breakfast at the Draper Park, followed by volleyball and squirt guns, etc. Then we headed to my grandparents for lunch and more outdoor play. Then a family picture and dinner at my aunt Cassi's with fireworks at the Riverton Park. They were wonderful!

Sunday we all went to my aunt and uncle's ward. We then had some free time so we visited Rob's brother Mike and their family who live in Draper. Then we headed up to the canyon and had a yummy dinner, went on a hike, and roasted marshmallows.

Here are my kids with my sister Wendy's kids. She and her husband and three kids drove out from New Jersey. I am glad they were willing to make the trip.

Monday my grandparents took us to the "This is the Place Heritage Park". It has changed a lot since I have been there. It was so much fun! There are serveral hands-on activites for the kids to do to learn about the pioneers. My kids love watching Little House on the Prairie so it was especially fun for them to pretend they were Laura or Charles.

They had a "rodeo" for kids. It was divided into different age groups and had "barrel racing" (riding a stick horse around cones) for the younger ones, and mutton busting (the real deal!) for the older ones. Grant won the barrel racing for the 3-5 year olds! He got a medal and everything. Doesn't he look proud?

Here are the kids plowing away.

Anyway, I highly recommend the park for anyone with kids under 10. I really need to go because Russell has been standing next to me with his shoes saying "shoooo, shoooo" over and over. I need to take that boy outside.

Grandma got us all patriotic hats since we were there for the 4th of July!

2010-07-22T08:24:00.000-07:00

We just returned Saturday from a two week trip to Utah and California for Astle reunions. It was a mad dash to get our yard ready to plant grass before we left. We wanted the grass to grow while we were gone. After much work by ourselved and two different contractors the ground was finally ready to plant. It was seeded the day before we left!

This is what we came home to!

Being away while the grass was germinating did have some drawbacks- some spots are too wet and others too dry- but overall we are pleased. And boy am I glad I did not have to keep four kids off of it for 2 weeks.

We even planted some on our front side yard.
I just wanted to post these pictures real quick. I will follow up later with a recap of our trip.

Dear Local School District

2010-06-08T21:12:00.001-07:00

I have an issue to discuss with you. Can you please tell me WHY you have decided to start the school year on AUGUST 18??????????? That is still summer! FULL ON summer! Now, I realize that you are ending the school year earlier next year to account for the early start, but please, tell me why?!?

Do you see this picture? These are my kids (adorable, I know...) on their first day of summer vacation. That would be June 4. And it is RAINING (even though you can't tell- it really was!) In fact, it has been raining for about two weeks. And the temperature hasn't even topped 80 degrees. So please explain to me why you want school to start on August 18 (when it is sunny and hot and 90 + degrees) and end on May 26 (when it is not quite 70 degrees.)

I hear you are having budget cuts. Wouldn't it make sense to save on air conditioning by not starting in the MIDDLE OF AUGUST? Wouldn't the kiddos learn better when the weather was cooler and not so tempting to be outside? I mean, nine months out of the year here it is cold yucky weather, but do you have to start school during one of the few actually warm sunny months? It is enough to make someone want to move out of Idaho :) :) :)

Now I know that I am a wimp from California. But even with my newly defined warm weather as anything over 60 degrees, I still find it hard to understand why we have to start school in the middle of August.

So please, PLEASE, reconsider for next year.

Your local parent,

Amy

*********************

Okay, so the past two days have been much better weather, but it is supposed to rain again tomorrow. And you can probably tell that I am sooo bitter about the early start in the fall (make that summer!).

We are just going to make the most of the summer that we have.

As you can see from this picture, these yahoos won't have to try too hard to have a good time.

End of the Year and me on my soap box

2010-06-03T21:31:00.000-07:00

The last day of school was today. I am usually so excited about the last day of school. I love having my kids home with me for the summer. This year I just feel caught off guard. It does not seem like summer is here, mostly because of the weather. We are barely topping 70 degrees and it has been rainy. So I am glad my kiddos are home but I wish it felt more like summer.

Yesterday the elementary school had an assembly where they gave out Accelerated Reader awards. For those of you without school age kids Accelerated Reader is a program in which the kids read a book and then take a test. They earn points depending on the level of the book and the percentage of questions they answer right. At this end of the year assembly they gave out first, second, and third place plaques for kids with the highest points earned in each grade. Seth and his two buddies, Cade and Brady, have been competing all year for these titles. Seth was new to the AR program this year- his school last year didn't offer it. Brady and Cade have alternated first and second place the last few years. Seth felt he didn't have a chance to catch up to Cade and Brady, but since the first quarter, when he found out about the whole deal, he has been trying for third. He was pretty sure he had it in the bag, but the school never called me to let me know. So the night before I was preparing him for disappointment. "Now, Seth, maybe there is someone you don't know about in another class that got more points than you..." The morning of I decided to call the school and just double check. Sure enough, he was getting the award and the assembly started at 8:40. It was 8:30. And I was in my pajamas. So were Grant and Russell. But we made it. :)

Seth earned the third place award for all of the third grade.
Here he is with his buddies. How fun that they were all in the same class. I have a feeling they will be split up next year. :(

Tonight was Brenna's dance recital. It was a long day but we made it through. I think she really enjoyed dressing up in her costumes and being on stage. She was dancing around the house when we got home.

This is her costume for her ballet dance. They were the colors of a rainbow.

This was her jazz dance costume to the song "Alley Oop". So yes, she was supposed to look like a cavewoman. She wasn't too excited about her hair. :)

This was my favorite dance and costume. This was a tap dance to "You've Got Friend in Me" from Toy Story. Unfortunately I forgot to take a picture of her by herself.

Here comes the soap box part :

Her dance class was taught in her teacher's home. It was very affordable, however I was unimpressed. I now know that just as there are different quality piano teachers there are different quality dance teachers as well. Brenna was in the youngest class and I can understand their performance (not really knowing the steps- following the teacher, and not doing any technique.) But the oldest class- 9 and 10 year olds- they should know their dances and actually know some technique! This experience makes me so grateful for my dance class experience as a girl. My teachers were excellent- thanks mom and dad! (There was a 9 year old girl in my pointe class- and she was GOOD!)

I probably sound so judgemental but this is how I feel. If you want your child to learn something- be it sports, music, dance, art, whatever, PLEASE research a good teacher. Don't just think that because you sign them up that they are going to learn. Now, if you just want them to have fun, then I guess it doesn't matter. But for me, when you actually learn how to do something right- when you actually learn the skill-that is when it is fun.

And one more thing- may I just say that a 2 1/2 hour rehearsal for nine total dances in a recital is way too long?????!!!!! Okay, thank you.

** Okay, I want to add something positive. I DO like how this teacher did the whole costume thing. Seriously- does it bother anyone else that most dance studios charge $50 something dollars for a costume that the kid is going to wear once? And if the child is in more than one dance, then it is even more money! I really like her idea of just having a basic black leotard for every costume, and then spicing it up. Every costume looked great (that was the best part of the recital- oh no, I am getting negative again-) and the cost was much less than a traditional studio. So dance teachers out there- that is my vote. Sew some sequins bands together, and we are good to go. :)

Father and Sons and Birthday Dad!

2010-05-25T20:08:00.000-07:00

Our stake had a Father-Son campout on Friday night. This is the first time we have lived anywhere where they did this. Seth was so excited. Rob was not and here is why: He did not get home from Spokane until 7:10pm Friday night and the campout was over an hour away. He rallied his courage however and took Seth and Grant anyway. They were back by 9:30 the next morning because it poured rain and began to snow! Poor guys! It was so cold last weekend! The record was broken here in the valley for both cold and precipitation!

Poor Brenna and I as well! We had a fun "Girl's Night" planned but couldn't get it started until the boys left! Then, we had a fun morning planned but Brenna slept in so long as a result of our late night start, that the boys were home right after she woke up!

A friend's sister was in town who is talented at doing nails so I had her come and do our nails for our girls night. Brenna was so excited she was jumping up and down. I was a bit nervous at someone else looking at my feet but rallied my courage as well. :)

Brenna's were so cute! She chose a pattern of polka dots with pink background on her toes, and the same with a purple background on her fingernails. I got a french style with a flower; toes only.

Sunday night Rob's parents and sister Melanie came for a visit. Rob's birthday was on Monday so we celebrated by going out to lunch with his family (including his sister and family who live here) and having dinner at our house that night. All went well for the festivities except for the fact that the moment dinner was ready to eat, we discovered our basement drains were backing up! That took some time to clean up/solve/stress over, so by the time we were through dinner was cold. We figured out the problem, though, and there was minimal damage. It could have been much worse.

Here is the birthday boy; 34 years old!

Do you see that hat Kami is wearing? That's right- it say "Happy Birthday Brenna." Since Seth and Brenna have birthdays in the summer, their teachers wanted to let them have a day to celebrate their birthday in class. So I was expected to bring treats for the class. So that makes five out of six birthday celebrations for our family in the month of May. :)

I surprised Rob with a new computer chair for his birthday. He had a lot of helpers helping him put it together.

Some cute pics of Russ I had to include:

Grandpa pushed Russ and Grant around in the empty box:

Trying out the new chair!

I made Rob a Lemon-Berry Trifle for his birthday dessert. IT WAS SOOOOOO GOOD! I found the recipe from Rob's cousin's AMAZING cooking blog. If you would like to see more delicious recipes check it out at:
http://www.melskitchencafe.com/ Actually, it started out as a blog- now she has more of a website. But, I promise, it will not disappoint. Thank you, Mel, for a delicious dessert! And thank you, Wal-Mart, for a very inexpensive trifle dish! This was a labor of love, but well worth it. We cleaned up every last drop of it.

It was 'lick-the-plate' good!

Don't you wish you had some, too?

Happy Birthday Grant

2010-05-18T20:27:00.000-07:00

Grant turned four on Saturday!
Here he is at birth...

one year...

2 years
3 years

and four years.

Okay- sorry about the poor quality pictures. Our camera had been MIA for a week (lost in the depths of the diaper bag) so these were taken on Rob's phone.

He remembered his Blue's Clues cake from a couple of years ago and wanted another one. I just went for the paw print this time. He picked out chocolate cake with chocolate frosting. I don't think it looks that great but he and I had fun decorating it.

Please excuse the wrapping paper and vacuum on the floor in the background!

We had a fun day. They had a parade honoring our military and country that we went to. The kids got tons of candy.

Grant wasn't too sure he wanted to go at first.

That evening we went and saw Rob's sister Melanie and her Institute Choir perform a show. It was fun to see her.

Grant is my little buddy. He likes to help me in the kitchen and watch me change Russ's diapers. Every single time he says, "Ooh, mom, poop is gross." I hope he outgrows the phase of disliking whatever I make for dinner because it is getting really old. Before he even knows what we are having he starts whining. We tell him he doesn't have to eat, but he still sits and whines all through the meal. He also "wipes" all the kisses off that I give him. He also is a homebody. He never wants to go anywhere which gets hard when we have to go grocery shopping.

I know the above sounds negative but I just want to catalogue what he is doing right now. At some future date we can laugh over it. He is a sweetheart and is very tender hearted. He tries so hard to be big like his older sister and brother but he has fears and doesn't always understand what is going on and so he gets nervous. He has done pretty well considering that in the first 2 1/2 years of his life we lived in four different homes.

He really loves to have stories read to him and is starting to draw pictures. In fact, one of them is so cute I just might have to post it.

Huh. I thought Rob scanned it but I don't see it. I will have to ask him about it and post it later.

Okay, this post is super long. But now it is done. My little Grant is four!!

Hi, This is Rob, I know where I saved the Scanned Art work of Grant, see below:

It's a whale if you can't tell. Grant is a fun little boy, he likes to wrestle and weighs a lot, so he can really pin you if you aren't careful. He's very Athletic, in fact, here's a video of him hitting a baseball.

Birthday

2010-05-14T11:05:00.000-07:00

I have been meaning to post this all week but have never done it. I figured I had better do it today, though, because tomorrow is Grant's birthday and I will want to post about him!

So last week, the day before Mother's Day, was my birthday. It was of course, also Wendy's birthday. I realized that it has been 11 years since we have been together on our birthday. That has not bothered me too much until this year. Our separation seems more permanent now I guess. Wendy, I miss you!

We celebrated at lunch time. I made a tuxedo cheese cake with my new springform pan my mom got me for Christmas- thanks mom! It was super rich and we could only eat a few mouthfuls at once, but it was good.

Seth had a soccer game that day and scored a goal! What a fun birthday present :) That afternoon we had a good time attending the kids school carnival.

That night Rob and his sister Kristy and husband Dirk and I went to Tucanos- a Brazilian buffet- for dinner. It was so delicious I completely stuffed myself before receiving the birthday cup of ice cream. After that, they surprised us by bringing Kristy and I each a long stemmed rose and a plate with four gigantic chocolate covered strawberries for the table. I guess maybe it was for Mother's Day or something. Anyhow, even though we were all stuffed, we couldn't let those go to waste! :)

Mother's Day was fun as well. Rob handled the back to back days pretty well. :) He made me crepes for breakfast! Are you all impressed? I was. And it was Russell's first day in the nursery at church. What a great present! He really enjoyed it.

So that was our fun party weekend last week. Now we have Grant's birthday tomorrow, and Rob's soon after.

Misrepresented

2010-05-08T12:59:00.000-07:00

Hey everyone! You were all so sweet in your comments to my last post. I just may have to vent more often on this blog!

Rob was not as enthusiastic about it as all of you because he feels misrepresented. So allow me to clarify:

When I wrote that he came home and said "What a mess..." he meant it as "Wow our boy can make quite the mess" and NOT "Wow, Amy, think you could clean up that mess a little?" So I feel bad that he feels like I portrayed him as a rude husband. He is not. In fact, he is rather helpful to have around. He keeps us happy with his humor and he pitches in a lot with the work. Hence the trouble when he is out of town! :)

So there you go.

My life is a mess

2010-05-06T20:21:00.000-07:00

Don't worry- I mean that quite literally. As in a physical mess. As in my house is always a mess and I can't keep on top of it. Or maybe I could but I don't feel like putting forth the effort (because with an 18th month old- that would require a lot of effort)

It has just been a rough day.

And Rob is out of town.

Here is how the afternoon/evening went down:

3:00- picked up kids from school and went to Brenna's dance class. Did her homework with her in the car before it started. Went in, got her changed, then took the boys to the library and then the bank. Rushed back to pick up Brenna- hurried home and stuffed some leftovers down their throats so we could get Seth to soccer practice. Realized Brenna came home with wrong shoes (another girl has an identical pair- different size) so drove back to dance class to switch them out. Then instead of going to soccer practice to let the kids play at the park until it finished I had to go back home because Grant got in the car without his shoes. Then back to soccer practice to pick up Seth. Then to pick up some music I had let someone borrow so I would have it for a rehearsal I had scheduled right when I got home, during which my three oldest kids were tired and cranky and yelled and hit each other the entire time.

Now the kids are finally in bed and I am venting on this here blog. Lucky you! Lest any of you thought that my family was perfect- here you go. We are not.

Luckily tomorrow is another day. And we have nowhere to go. :)

Actually, despite all of the detours the afternoon brought I was okay with the running around. The part that bothered me was my kids being so mean to each other. I wish they would look out for each other and care about each other more. Does anyone have any advice on how to instill that sibling love in children? I am not saying they are always rude to each other. Sometimes they are so sweet. But there are definitely times when there is serious sibling rivalry going on.

Okay so I just exposed some faults in my family and I am not very comfortable doing that. So please don't judge me. I am just being honest. None of us are perfect, right?

Now to change the subject: Here is a picture of Seth and Brenna before their choir concert last week. Don't they look nice?
Here is the mess Russ made while I was cooking dinner the other night. I kept slipping on the plastic bags as I went back and forth in the kitchen.

The other side of the kitchen. I had most of this cleaned up when Rob got home, but by then Russ had emptied a drawer. I just laughed when Rob came in and said, 'What a mess." The child doesn't need any toys- he prefers the kitchen items.

That's all for tonight. I hope all you mothers out there have a great weekend!

Yard Work

2010-04-20T20:57:00.001-07:00

Rob spent a lot of time last weekend on this:

His nice assistant let him borrow their tractor. He is leveling our backyard so we can plant grass. It is taking a lot longer than I thought it would. I am not sure why I had an opinion on the subject- what do I know about "tractoring?" (do you like my new verb?)

I apologize for the crooked pictures. Do you realize it is very difficult to keep two little boys out of the way of a tractor?

Russ had a great time looking out the window. In fact, this is one of his favorite perches. He dumps the toys out of his toy bin and then turns it over and stands on it so he can see out the window. Usually nothing much is going on out there. This week he got to watch a tractor!

He is looking upset because as soon as I brought out the camera he got down and tried to grab it. I put him back up there so I could take a picture but that just earned me the "evil eyebrow."

I love spring! All of the flowers and blossoms make me so happy! Hooray!

Time to Catch Up

2010-04-18T20:32:00.000-07:00

These first pics are of the kids trying out their funny faces.

I have procrastinated this post because I knew it would take me forever.
This post concerns what we did over Spring Break. The kids had a week and a half so we traveled. First we went to Utah and stayed with my wonderful sister Sarah. My mom flew in as well and we attended my sister Heidi's University Singers concert at BYU. It was so wonderful to hear the choir live in the DeJong Concert Hall once again. I was in heaven. It was also neat because I was able to bring Seth to the concert. He really enjoyed it, especially the lighter pieces. It was a great program for him because it featured English songs throughout history- so he could understand the words.
My sister Heidi looked so beautiful that night.

The day after the concert we drove to CA to visit my parents. My mom drove with me and the kids. That was very helpful and it was fun to have her to talk to on the way.

Unfortunately I downloaded some of these pictures out of order. So these next few pictures were taken in CA at a playground.

During our week in CA we did various activities to keep the kids occupied. They were planning on swimming since last year during Spring Break the weather was so warm. This year, however, was a little cooler and rainy. That is okay, we still had a great time. And it snowed in ID while we were in CA so we came out ahead.

One day we went to the Sacramento Railroad Museum. These pictures were taken there.

Another day we went to Fairy Tale Town. It is a fun place for young kids in Sacramento that is based on nursery rhymes and fairy tales. For example, this is a slide built into the shoe the old woman lived in. They have a path for the "crooked mile", some live animals to represent the Three Billy Goats Gruff, Eyore and Peter Cottontail. They have a pumpkin coach and horses to represent Cinderella's carriage. The kids have a great time climbing on the figures or sliding down the slides.

Russ liked to give this "eyebrow" look during our vacation.

I thought this was just adorable and perfect for my four kids.
Now we are back to UT. This picture was taken at my sister Sarah's house.
Sarah and her cute baby Eli, my Grandma Astle, and Russ and I.
Same as above except with my mom instead of Grandma.

I was a bit nervous about bringing my four kids to Sarah's house so I brought some games for them to play. It turns out that all of them had a great time playing with Eli's toys. In fact, just today Seth and Brenna were singing one of the songs, word for word, that Eli's toys played.
Russ had a different interpretation of play for this toy. Turn it over and sit on it. Very creative.
Now we are back to my parent's home in CA. This was after church on Sunday. My parents church starts at 8:30. That combined with being an hour earlier than ID made for an early morning. But we made it. :)
My dad and Russ. My poor dad was so busy the whole time we were on account of tax season and he serves as bishop(like a pastor) of his ward(congregation). We did not see him much. Luckily, Easter Sunday he was able to be home all day because it was General Conference(the bi-annual meeting when the prophet and leaders of our church speak to the members) so he did not have his usual Sunday meetings. We were able to stay home and watch it on TV. It was a great Easter.

After our visit to Fairy-Tale Town we continued on to Modesto to visit my Grandma Stephens. She is so cute! She was so excited to see us. She lives in an assisted living place and has her piano in the library. (She is the lady who started the great legacy of music in our family). Seth, Brenna and I all played the piano for her.

This is us coloring Easter eggs Friday night. Rob flew in that night for the weekend. It was great to have him there.

Saturday morning we had an Easter Egg hunt for the kids in the backyard.

Well, it was a little disjointed, but there it was, our Spring Break. We drove back home on Monday after Easter. It was so nice to visit my family. It was wonderful to listen General Conference and be reminded and inspired to be better. I am always so touched by the beautiful music provided by the choirs during the sessions and this time was no exception.

Now that we are back we are full swing into the end of the year goings-on. We have soccer, children's choir, piano, dance, and scouts. We are also trying to squeeze in some yard work here and there. We had beautiful weather this weekend so that helped. We are getting the yard ready to plant grass. Rob's assistant has a tractor and lent it to him so he is leveling this week. It will be exciting!

Spring!

2010-03-22T12:27:00.001-07:00

Here are some more cute pictures of the kids:
Russ is at the stage where he gets into everything. He loves getting into the cupboards, and sometimes, he literally gets into them.

One day he was sitting in this laundry basket as a chair. He even leaned back and relaxed and it fit him just right he didn't even tip over.

He also loves wearing other people's shoes.

Brenna achieved her "Accelerated Reader" points to earn her first grade medal last week. She was very excited. Of course I forgot my camera at the school assembly so we took a shot when she got home. I should have taken a picture of her teeth because she is now missing her two front teeth. She looks pretty darn cute with them out, too.

Grant and Russ really enjoy watching whatever is in the oven baking. This picture was taken on our weekly Friday night Pizza night.

Spring is here and I am so excited! I planted these tulip bulbs in the fall and am ecstatic that they are blooming. In fact, the kids and I are headed to CA to visit my parents for Spring Break and I am so excited tog o, except for the fact that my tulips are going to bloom while I am gone. (Just a few of them have bloomed already.)

Here are some Hyacinths that I also planted in the fall. I love flowers! Yay for Spring!

Random sampler

2010-03-09T22:14:00.000-08:00

Cool shades, Russ!
Grant had to join in the fun.

Two cute brothers.

Russ was "helping" the kids dry the floors during Saturday chores...

Brenna looks like an official first-grader: minus a front tooth!

Starting them young...

Cruisin'

2010-02-02T20:53:00.000-08:00

I have not blogged in a while because Rob and I were gone all last week on a cruise! We had so much fun that now I am going to blog all about it. This is a super long post so be prepared!

I got the idea a year ago that I wanted to go on a cruise in January. The idea derived from the fact that it was our first winter in Idaho and I was trying to find a way out. So I looked ahead to this year when I would not have a nursing baby! I reasoned that we could say the cruise was to celebrate our ten year anniversary. My mom kindly flew out to take care of my kids and my sister in law helped out a bit, too. My it is hard work getting ready to leave but once we were gone it was so worth it! My mom did a fabulous job with my kiddos, too. It was nice leaving them in such capable hands.

The hardest part of our trip was getting to Miami. We wanted to cruise on Royal Caribbean because all the veteran cruisers we had talked to said it was the best. Unfortunately as of winter 2010 they cancelled their shorter cruises out of California. We thought at the time- "oh, we won't have our kids- it won't matter that it will take us 3 flights to get there." Well, here is the short and quick version of that long and drawn out travel day:

The first two flights went smoothly- Boise to Salt Lake, Salt Lake to Atlanta. Then we were delayed for 31/2 house in Atlanta, finally departing at 1:30 am, arriving in Miami at 3:00 am, sitting at the gate for 20 more minutes while they tried to figure out how to move the walkway, getting our luggage by 4 am only to find that one of the wheels on my suitcase had been totally shorn off (by the way- they don't cover that! Thanks, Delta- for charging me $20 each way to break my bag!) then finding out that the free shuttle to our hotel doesn't run between 1 and 5 am, taking a taxi who took us to the wrong hotel, paying more money for that hotel shuttle to take us to the right hotel...finally getting to sleep at 5am." Thank heaven we didn't have any kids with us on that trip.

Things brightened up quickly for us the next day as we went through a very smooth process of getting on the ship. We were starving by lunchtime since we had slept through breakfast so as soon as we boarded we headed to the buffet.

It had a beautiful dining room with windows overlooking the ocean. As soon as our hunger was assuaged a bit we looked around, looked at each other and both commented on how we felt like spoiled Americans. But don't worry- over the course of the cruise we embraced it and enjoyed ourselves greatly.
Miami is such a neat looking city. We did not have time to explore the city but I am definitely intrigued. I am not a huge fan of palm trees but I loved them here. They just fit!

I found this road so interesting. It is just a long narrow stretch of land between two bays and the road takes up all of it.

It was overcast the day we got on board the ship but as we were pulling out the sun came out just a bit. I love how it made the water look blue.

Right before our ship pulled out we saw another ship coming in. There were several dolphin swimming ahead of the ship. As we pulled out we saw several more but our attempts to capture them on camera failed.

When we got to the buffet entrance that first day we were met with these delightful carvings.

Here are some views of the ship. This one is looking down several decks to the main deck.

A fancy chandelier type thing.

I loved looking out at the ocean whenever I felt like it. Most of the days were overcast, but the second day on the ship was beautiful and sunny.

The popular pool hang-out.

Rock-climbing wall...

Sports court (we spent a lot of time here)

I didn't get a picture of the gym, but I can say I enjoyed running when it was on a treadmill looking over the ocean!

Each night we were served a fancy dinner in the dining room. Here are some of the couples at our table. We were served very elegant foods- some of which I had never tried before such as roasted duck and lobster tail. It was fun trying new things. Everything tasted delicious.

Here we are on the "formal" night.

Every night after dinner we would go back to our room and find our towel rolled into a cute animal shape.

The second day on the ship was a day at sea. All day at sea, you might ask? What did you do? Well, a lot. We stuffed ourselves at the breakfast buffet, worked out in the fancy gym, played basketball, played soccer, went swimming, spent time in the hot tub, ate some more, (did I mention they have soft serve ice cream available all day?) played miniature golf, watched the Ice Dancin' show, watched the Ballroom Dance show, had a fancy dinner, etc.

The next day we docked in Cozumel, Mexico. It was rainy and overcast that day but we went ahead and spent some time at the beach.

It was raining when we arrived so we were handed a big umbrella.

Brenna had specifcally requested that we bring her back a seashell so we took a walk along the shore and collected several.

I went for a short swim just to say I had been swimming in the Caribbean. The water is so nice and warm. The weather was nice and warm too- don't feel bad for me that it was not sunny. While sunshine imporves any situation in my opinion, it was still 70 degrees or warmer and I was not going to let anything spoil my fun.

Aren't those ships huge?

A view of Cozumel as we pulled out.

When we got off the ship these people were awaiting our arrival- hoping to convince us tourists to take a picture with them and then buy it.

Here are Rob and I skating in the ice skating rink on the ship. I had never been ice skating before. It was a lot of fun. In this phot I had just lost my balance. I didn't ever fall, though!

Here I had just lost my balance and careened into Rob.

Our next stop the following day was Belize.

Belize has one of the largest barrier reefs in the world so we were unable to dock. We took a 'tender'- aka smaller boat- to the shore.

Some of the fauna in Belize.

Our excursion this day found us taking a bus ride across the country (a whole hour and forty minutes) to see some Mayan ruins. When we got off the bus we crossed the river on this hand-cranked ferry.

This sign shows the way to the ruins we were viewing: Xunantunich

We hiked up a short hill and then saw this...

see the huge temple looming in the background?

It started pouring down rain as soon as we arrived. (It was in a rain forest, after all). We took shelter in a covered picnic area while our Mayan guide shared some interesting information with us. As soon as he finished it stopped raining and the sun came out.

We were able to climb up the tallest temple. It was very slick since it had just rained and Rob and I both had the thought that we would never be allowed to do this in the US- especially with no railing. Some of the pathways were only 1.5 feet wide!

Our guide told us that the mounds and hills in the area look like natural hills but really they are other ruins that have crumbled and become buried but have not been uncovered yet.

There were some interesting carvings on the left side.

Overlooking some "hills"

Very slick and dangerous...

Overlooking Guatemala. The ruins site was right on the border of Belize and Guatemala.

Isn't it beautiful? When we first arrived we heard what we were told were howler monkeys in the trees. They sounded like Star Wars space ships to me. I am pretty sure George Lucas used them for his audio.

I can see where rain forests get their name. Even after it had stopped raining for an hour, it sill sounded like it was constantly raining in the trees because of all the moisture that kept falling down through the leaves. I loved the sound.

The next day was another day at sea and then we were back in Miami. After another long but not as delayed trip, we were home.

Rob and I certainly enjoyed our experience. We definitely want to do it again sometime. There was so much to do and it was all so accessible. So if any of you are planning a cruise in the future- let us know. We just might have to crash your party.

Finally- Christmas pictures!

2010-01-13T19:58:00.000-08:00

Here is the pre-Christmas Eve Celebration photo. Notice I am still in my apron. It was a long but fun day in the kitchen, and worth it....
The table(actually 3 put together)...and a few excited kids.

Seth made that centerpiece for me at school. He also made the little place cards so everyone knew their assigned seat at the table.

Getting ready for the feast. We had Rob's sister and her family over. Her husband works for UPS so Christmas Eve can be a late night of work for him. Luckily he walked in right as we were ready to eat.

After dinner we sang some Christmas carols.

Christmas Morning

Here are the kids with their Christmas morning spread. Rob and I try not to overdo it each year, but it seems by the time they open cousin and grandparent gifts they are pretty spoiled.

Russell was the only one who didn't get too much for Christmas. Here you can see him in the corner playing with an empty milk carton!

Christmas day was spent eating yummy peppermint rolls wreaths and doing our puzzles and crafts that everyone got for Christmas. We had fun just being together.

For New Year's we at the last minute decided to go to Rob's parents. We had a good time but forgot our camera.

I don't know why it has taken me so long to want to sit down and post about Christmas. I think I was overwhelmed. I guess I didn't need to be because we hardly took any pictures to blog about anyway.

Hope all of you have a great 2010.

Disappointment

2010-01-12T20:48:00.000-08:00

I finally sat down to blog tonight.

I can't find the cord that plugs into the camera and computer so I can download my pictures.

I have searched and searched.

I didn't put it anywhere and unfortunately Rob is not here so I cannot ask him if he moved it.

So- sorry- no pictures tonight. I hardly have any anyway, and they are all of Christmas which is getting further and further in the past as we speak.

We had a wonderful one! I just love relaxing at home with no schedule. The kids were happily content playing with their new things. I always enjoy the time to just stay home and be together as a family. We play games and interact more than when we have a schedule to keep.

Now it is back to routine. Cold, dreary January- bleh.

Hurry up Spring!

Family

2009-12-22T19:53:00.001-08:00

Last weekend Rob's brother Ryan, his wife Julianne, and their boy Sam came to visit. We haven't seen them for almost two years. It was so much fun to see them. It was our first time ever seeing Sam. In all the excitement, I must have forgotten to take pictures. Yes, unfortunately, this is the only picture I took- of Sam and Russell. It is even blurry on Sam. Sorry Ryan and Julianne- don't judge our value of you based on the pictures we took.
Continuing the lack of pitcture taking theme- Saturday my piano students performed a recital at a local retirement home. This is the only picture I took of that event. (I know- I seriously need help). Russell was having trouble holding still so I guess Rob put him on this older gentleman's lap. I was surprised that Russell was okay with that, but he was (it was all about the cane). The gentleman seemed tickled pink to have a youngster sitting on his lap.

Christmas is two days away and I still have some shopping to do. Agh! Oh, and could my last present I ordered from Amazon please come in the mail tomorrow- please!!?!

One more item worth mentioning: Rob and I celebrated our 10th anniversary on Sunday. Wow! Actually, I don't think we really celebrated it- that is coming later (cruise!), but it happened. That night I was thinking where we would be in ten more years... Seth will be 18, Brenna will be 16.... Whoa! I had to put on the brake. That is way too old. Let's just keep them 8 and 6 for now.

I sure do love this guy. I am grateful that somehow I fit it in my busy schedule to marry him ten years ago :) I am looking forward to many more anniversaries to come.

Seriously- this year has been a big one- I hit 30 and now I have been married for ten years!? Oh, yeah, I have also spotted SEVERAL gray hairs on my head...

In the Bleak Midwinter

2009-12-18T12:24:00.000-08:00

Our very good friends from Oregon had a link to this video on their blog. They said it is a new (to them) favorite for the season. I watched it and was so touched. The sound of the choir is amazing- such pure pitch, and the venue is beautiful. I enjoyed it so much I am posting the link here so you can enjoy it, too.

Enjoy the season. Merry Christmas everyone.

Winter

2009-12-15T22:39:00.001-08:00

Last week was unusually cold. It finally warmed up (you know, to the 30s) so the kids could go play out in the snow that fell earlier that week. They had a good time trying to make a snow fort and sledding down the hill in our backyard.

Monday night we made our annual gingerbread houses. We each made one this year, except Russ. It was a fun sugary, sticky time.

Rob's was once again the most creative and the best looking.

I cannot believe that Christmas is just around the corner. I am enjoying this season so much, I do not want it to be over- plus I still have some shopping to do! I hope all of you are more prepared than me.

Russell Muscle

2009-12-07T13:49:00.000-08:00

That is my nickname for Russ. Here he is a cute video of him. Even though he is a novice walker, he can already dance.