Thursday, April 30, 2009

Hatching Chicks, Sleeping in Cupboards, and a New Heli Field!!!

Well it's already almost May!!

This means I am almost done with 4-H for the summer! This is a good and bad thing. I love my job but I also love to have a break every once in a while... :) Don't WE All?

So not much has been going on in our family lately. Jims Heli Club has been working on their new county field. He is very stoked about having a insured place to fly when he wants, without having to worry about buildings, soccer players, and the new field is in Lehi!

Here are some pics of the field. They are ripping out lots of trees and putting down asphalt soon.


I have been invited on a Sit N Chat retreat. I will be spending today, tomorrow and part of Saturday in a nice modern home in Heber with some great friends from the ward.  Most of the these great women I get toether with every Thursday night for our weekly get a break night. WE have some good times! I am soo excited to get some projects done and to sit n chat with all of them and eat lots of great food. CALORIES DON'T COUNT THIS WEEKEND!!

We have all been victims of the dramatic weather changes lately, therefore we have all had our bouts of the cold, sinus' infections, and coughs. WE LOVE LIVING IN UTAH!!! 
Hey I guess it could be the SWINE flu right?

Here are just some funny pics of the kids recently. Next week, Sat Ryker is turning 3. I can't believe my baby is almost THREE!! Crazy!!

"All Tuckered Out!"



Ryker is really into climbing in my bathroom cupboard and pretending to sleep. We EVEN have to sing the night time singing routine starts with "I am A Child of God" then "I love to see the Temple" then "The Wheels on the Bus" and then "Pokey Bear." It's soo cute he sings along to and has to make sure  we do all the actions for the action songs..


A few days after Easter I purchased these Hatch your Own Chick Eggs. JO liked to watch them throughout the "hatching" phase. It was fun!








Saturday, April 18, 2009

EASTER 2009!!

                                                           
With the 14-16" of snow we got the other day, it sure didn't seem like we have already had Easter, but tis true. As usual we always plan to go out with the Herbert Family and Friends camping for the weekend. I had to work Friday till late so we decided to go to dinner as a family and come home and watch a movie. 

Saturday morning we headed out to the West Mts, in Lehi. We met up with family and shortly after the trip turned very bleak. We took a few rides on the 4-Wheelers and got ready to hide easter eggs this is when the rain came. The rain never stopped in time to have an Easter Egg hunt. There are other friends and family that come out ONLY for the hunt and they were saddened by the event.  

OUR EASTER EGG HUNT  in the MTS... is so fun! I has been a tradition for my whole life and more. We are up to like 600 eggs or something! Every year we add more it's crazy. The kids don't even NEED Easter Baskets in the morning bc of the hunt. We hide money, change, balls, Wendys and McDs unopened kids meal prizes, PRIZE slips and of course wrapped candy in our eggs. Its really fun, and especially humorous when we find eggs from the year before while in the hunt, with that many eggs we can't possibly get them all.
ANYWAY... so with the crappy muddy yucky rainy weather the Easter Egg hunt was to be postponed. I was a bit sad but ok with not trudging through mud with my kids to hunt. 

Speaking of kids.. what a day it was RYKER was sooo whiney. All he wanted is grandpa to hold him, and sometimes would go for me or shelby. I am NOT kidding when I say I was completely warn out when I left, as RYKER cried the WHOLE time nor did I want anymore kid! I don't know what the heck was with him, it was part being really tired but the other I dunno. I didn't even get one game of cards in :(  So we headed home just as it got dark and both kids were out before we even hit the dirt road!  AHHH SILENCE!!! :)

To JIM and I Easter is a day to celebrate and reflect on the Savior Jesus Christ; his life, mission, and his love, and his greatest gift to us all, the Atonement and Resurrection. We are very adamant about our kids knowing and believing this. Easter isn't only for Easter Egg Hunts, Cards, Candy and Camping .... sooo .... with that we come home Saturday night from campin to spend Easter at home. 

Funny note here: We were trying to teach JO and help her keep in her mind this knowledge of the Resurrection she had some funny moments

mom: "Jo what is Easter all about tell Grandma"
jo: "It's the day when Jesus came alive again"
mom:  "What is the big word that starts with an R, that means coming alive again"
jo: "Its the day that Jesus was erected."

Giggle Giggle.... we quickly fixed that but RES -URR EC-TED!!! Later she digressed and said.

"It's the day Jesus was arrested!"  I love kids!

Easter Morning....


Who do you think was more excited?

The Easter Bunny, who almost didn't come because of bad behavior, left a trail of eggs leading to the presents, we brought some home for our kids from camping to hide on our own. Jo had a great time finding the 60+ eggs all over the middle floor of our house while Ryker just wanted to play with his new Doc from Cars, lego car and matchbox car. 

"MOM open thiiiiiiis"



Church was very VERY uplifting, fulfilling, inspiring and I am soo glad we went and didn't go back out West with family, all though it was a beautiful sunny day.  I sang with the choir in our ward and we have a good choir and even a better accompanist. He plays professionally for the Presbyterian church in SLC. He adds so much to our music in choir and sacrament!!!! 

YW was awesome! Sis Weber did a silent lesson. The lesson parts were typed up and displayed on poster board up on an easel. She would change out the boards as it went on. There were questions to ask yourself, movies to watch, songs to listen too and at the end the post said... " we will now have the closing prayer" It was soooooo GOOD!!! I can't believe how strong the spirit was AND I had never been able to get through a lesson without chitter chatter so that was pleasant too :)

Ok so after church we came home, hung out, hung out some more, and then tried to decide what to do for dinner. We usually go to Mom and Dad Innes for a scrumptious Easter feast...

This is the 2nd year in a row that Mom and Dad Innes have visited other family on Easter. Last year was sort of an Emergency as we were told the Sat. night before Easter our West.  I quickly shopped, and put together a dinner for us and the 2 sisters. 

THIS YEAR we knew they were gonna be gone. We planned to have the sisters and Ross and Ang but baby Ali was ill so it was just us. I didn't want to cook a big ham dinner just for us, and we had the week before... so this was our Easter Dinner...

Dino-Chicken Nuggets 
Fries w/ pink sauce
Grilled Ham and Cheese Sandwhiches!
Great HUH? Hey there is ham in there somewhere right?

It REALLY was great! 
We watch the movie "The City of Ember"  which was very good and kid friendly.
Then we played a little Wii and put our tired Ryker in bed. 

SINCE we didn't dye eggs out West we decided we couldn't just not so JO and JIM and I all dyed eggs till late. It was soo fun! Jo was really creative and particular about her egg dying. JIM was a perfectionist and the photograph of course. He was annoyed the RED was Pink for his stars ans stripes egg :) I just dyed away, using all the techniques I learned from 4-H. It was an "eggxtra" fun time.


  


We hope you had a great Easter, we look forward to next years!




Thursday, April 9, 2009

Our staycation

We didn't get to go to St George for our annual April Fools Fun Fly because everything just kept going wrong and we just weren't meant to go.  Maybe next year?  JO was very, very sad, she was looking forward to seeing Sadie and Bizzy and swimming at the hotel pool. PLUS we were bringing along 2 cousins too. 

We decided to do a little "staycation" here with the kids. On Friday we ventured over to Cabellas to look at the animals, fish, play a round in the shooting gallery, and eat some lunch. The kids enjoyed feeding the fish and Ryker wanted to get into an old truck that was a target in the shooting gallery or the plane that was hanging from the ceiling near the restaurant... SO funny! He just loves anything with wheels, skids, and/or wings!


RYKER Went from this to this in about 10 mins!








This reflection at the top of the aquarium was funny because JO said.. "Look mom that fish is swimming upside down!"

We enjoyed a very expensive lunch but it was good. I had my first bison burger and it was delicious! We also got some really good fudge from the county store in Cabellas it was sooooo good. With all the choices to choose from like orange, mint, raspberry, toffee, and so forth I went with "Heavenly Hash" which tasted like a snickers bar and Jim ... well he picked CHOCOLATE. I thought that was so funny b/c of all the choices he had. It was delicious and I have decided to make it a tradition to have yummy fudge while watching conference.



We then ventured over to the new Lehi Smiths! WOW what a store and with 2 kids exceptionally tired what an experience.. Yup won't be doing that again any time soon.

Saturday we enjoyed a day of being inspired, loved, uplifted and edified by our prophet, apostles, and many other general authorities. The kids were pretty good during it we had lots to color and of course SUGAR to eat. 

On Sunday it was time for more conference. When Jo learned we didn't have to go to church too.. She started singing and dancing around her room..."yeah no church! Weahoo no boring church." After laughing at her and then trying to "talk her into" liking church, the afternoon session started. I kept thing.. oh dear my 5 year old doesn't want to go to church? I can only imagine what the future holds??? :\

Conference was wonderful, most of the talks really hit home. Why does it always make me soo tired though I always feel exhausted after? I asked Jim he said something like well you are staring at a guy in a dark suit for hours, sitting on a couch, wrestling kids to stay quiet,... I thought. I then asked a friend why it was so hard to stay awake and she said... maybe because it is so spiritually exhausting... for the good. I can't agree more! 

Anyway.. so we had dinner at the Innes'. It was great to see the family and we enjoyed our first for many BBQs of the year! Thanks Ma and Pa it was great!

Monday we decided to extend out staycation with a day out for the kids. We went to the Mall and played on the playground, then to lunch at Goodwood, that is always rough for Ryker as he can't sit still, and then to the park. It was a pleasant and well spent afternoon.