Gibson's World

Dollhouse

2011-12-30T19:00:00.000-07:00

Here's a little more progress on Hailee's dollhouse. If you recall, it started like this:

Here it is after I pulled out all the wallpaper and painted it (like a little replica of our real house):

I still plan to add window treatments, a little more detail in each room, some vinyl wall art and use some goof-off in a few spots, but we presented it to Hailee like this.

I love that within an hour of receiving it, she put her imagination to work and filled it up with "furniture".

It will be a fun project to continue working on with Hailee. I'll post pics again when it's all done.

"Swim"

2011-12-12T23:26:00.002-07:00

I completed a sprint triathlon in September. I absolutely LOVED it, it was so much fun! This particular one (Triathamom) was really well organized. While I competed, they had a fair for the kids with bounce houses, face painting, cotton candy, sign-making stations and all kinds of activities.

I trained for a long time. The distances were a 300-yard swim, 12-mile bike and a 5K run. I know, pretty easy, but for me, it was really an accomplishment. I had three goals:

1) Finish in under 2 hours.
2) No getting off my bike.
3) No walking during the "run".

I know, I'm setting the bar really high:) I was happy that I met all of my goals. I'll certainly do more of these and hopefully I'll get better each time. Here are my times for each area:

Swim 9:11
Transition 1 2:53
Bike 1:03:13 (Rate-10.4)
Transition 2 1:39
Run 35:09 (Pace 11:21)
Total Time 1:52:02

My family came to cheer me on!

The bike leg was really tough for part of it. The first four miles were all uphill so there were parts of it that I was only going 3-4 mph. Some people were getting off their bikes and walking around me and others were flying past me. I just had my gears on the lowest possible setting and kept pedaling. It was brutal. 4 miles in, it switched to downhill and I got to finish most of the rest of it at a 30 mph pace. That made up for the first four! Here I am finishing the bike leg.

Transitioning from bike to run.

During the run, I got all emotional (ha ha, big surprise). A song came on my Ipod from my favorite band, but I'd never really paid attention to the words before. They were so motivating at that moment. I was really proud of myself. I set that song on repeat and listened to it over and over through the entire run. The lyrics are at the bottom of this post.

Fueling up afterward.

I talked a few of the girls I work with into doing it with me. I'm glad they did, we had a great time!

My kids wanted to join me on the podium.

What a neat experience. I can't wait to do one again!

"Swim"
Jack's Mannequin

You've gotta swim
Swim for your life
Swim for the music
That saves you
When you're not so sure you'll survive
You gotta swim
And swim when it hurts
The whole world is watching
You haven't come this far
To fall off the earth
The currents will pull you
Away from your love
Just keep your head above

You gotta swim
Through nights that won't end
Swim for your families
Your lovers your sisters
And brothers and friends
Yeah you've gotta swim
Through wars without cause
Swim for the lost politicians
Who don't see their greed as a flaw

The currents will pull us
Away from our love
Just keep your head above

You gotta swim
Swim in the dark
There's no shame in drifting
Feel the tide shifting and wait for the spark
Yeah you've gotta swim
Don't let yourself sink
Just find the horizon
I promise you it's not as far as you think
The currents will drag us away from our love
Just keep your head above
Just keep your head above
Swim
Just keep your head above
Swim, swim
Just keep your head above
Swim

Chile con Limon

2011-12-11T15:36:00.001-07:00

Once (August 2010) I posted this on my cooking blog...

Ok, No this isn't a recipe, nor does it have anything to do with cooking (besides putting the bag in the microwave), but I just had to share this little beauty with everyone. In 2004, Ty and I went to
Puerto Vallarta. In their local WalMart, I found this wonderful bag of goodness.

I bought a box to try it out and became immediately addicted. When we were leaving to come back home, we made a special trip back to the WalMart so I could get another box. If I had only known how difficult it would be to get my hands on it again, I would've bought out the whole store. Back at home, I googled it, I searched for it, but it was nowhere to be found. I even went so far as to contact the "ACT II" company begging them to ship it to my house or my state or at least my country! Their response? "Sorry, it is onlyavailable in Mexico". I would've paid any shipping price, so I didn't
understand that at all, but I'd come to an impasse and had to move on with life. I thought about it, I told others about it, but ultimately, I came to accept the fact that I would have to wait until we made it down to Mexico again someday. Imagine my surprise when I opened my birthday present from my little brother and his wife this year (6 years later) and found this inside! They had found this popcorn
available on a website (that probably didn't exist when I was looking for it) at My Mexican Pantry. I have been enjoying this delicious popcorn again and loving every bite. Every bite brings me sadness
though, knowing that I'm coming closer to the end of my precious box. Yes, it's available on this website, but at $2/bag, I do have to go easy on it. Just wanted to share this joy with all of you. Please do let me know if you taste it!

Here's the link to that post: http://cookinbrooke.blogspot.com/2010/08/chile-con-limon.html

So, now even a year and a half after THAT, Ty's sister sent up this seasoning for me to try.

How awesome is that? Well, I immediately made popcorn upon receiving this gift and was very happy to find this is the closest substitution I've ever come across, and believe me, I have looked. No, not exactly the same, but pretty darn close. It's not quite as spicy, not quite as strongly flavored and this one has salt added where the other one didn't, but I have to admit this one probably fits the average American taste bud better than the Mexican version so it will likely sell better here. Anyway, I just thought it is cool that I have all these family members keeping an eye out for me and being so thoughtful and I also wanted to share this post again in case you missed it the first time around since it was on my other blog. My official unpaid advertisement: Go buy some of this! :-)

Special Present

2011-12-07T20:28:00.001-07:00

I'm so excited about this new project I'm working on. My dad built this dollhouse when I was little and my mom decorated it. I played with and loved this thing for years! We gave it to Ty's sister for her kids to use quite a few years ago, as I had no use for it at that time. Well, now that I have a little girl at the perfect age for this and our nieces are teens, I'm working on a remodel for Hailee for Christmas! It was a little outdated! :)

My mom and I tore out all the old wallpaper and curtains and Ty sanded the whole thing down. I started on the paint and will just be working on it throughout the month. I have all the paint remnants leftover from painting the rooms in my house, so I'm planning on doing this dollhouse exactly the same as our real house. That way, even if we move, Hailee will always have a mini replica of her first home. The outside of it was stark white and I started replacing it with this dark tan color. I'll post pictures of my progress!

Toy Story Birthday

2011-10-18T21:14:00.002-06:00

My little Jake turned 3 and we threw him an everything Toy Story birthday party. He LOVES Toy Story, so I couldn't think of a better way to celebrate his day. He loved the party and being the center of attention for all of the family and friends that came to spoil him. He's one lucky kid!

I wanted to try to make his cake myself and I've never made my own cake with fondant before. I definitely learned a few things to improve on for next time, but I was really happy with how it turned out. I can't take credit for the idea, I just copied it from a picture I found out in blogland and made some minor modifications.

My mom partnered with me in pulling this whole thing off and we had a blast with our fun Toy Story themed treats. We were pretty proud of our dessert table. First, Mr. Potato Head and Hamm cake balls (idea from Bakerella). I think they are the cutest!

My mom made these alien cupcakes, which were as delicious as they are cute.

Jessie Hat & Sherriff Badge cookies?? Get out! My mom made these too. So freaking cute!

I love this picture of Jake. This is the face he was making the entire time everyone sang "Happy Birthday", like he was poised and ready to blow out those candles!

Lots of delicious food!

A few games for the kids to play.

BFF's!

Big sister helping open presents.

Jake had lots of friends and family there to show him how loved he is!

What a fun birthday and what a sweet boy! I love that kid!

Happy 3rd!

2011-09-04T21:33:00.005-06:00

My sweet little Jake turned three on Friday! This means a lot of changes for him. He’s moving into a new class at school on Tuesday (he LOVES his teacher, so he will miss her a lot), he had to give up his binky, he’ll be getting a big boy bed (yes, he’s three and is still in his crib), I’m taking away the option of the pull-ups (we’ll see how that goes), and he’s just really not a baby anymore. I think I’ve been noticing that lately, but not wanting to admit to it. Well, I think now it’s official. Especially since he corrects me every time I call him my baby. “I’m a BIG kid, mom!” I thought it would be fun to share a few of his little quirks. Things that just make Jake, Jake.

1) This kid does NOT like candy, or really many sweet things at all. At the parade on the 4^th, he wouldn’t even bend over to pick up a piece of candy if it hit his foot! At a recent birthday party, he refused to participate in the piñata when he heard it involved candy. He won’t drink Kool-Aid or even juice of any kind. Ty recently brought him to the gas station to allow him to pick anything he wanted. He picked…bottled water. Ty made sure he understood what he was picking and he was full aware of his selection. That’s what he wanted! I’m not complaining. I LOVE it! On his birthday I told him he could pick anything he wanted for lunch, even from a restaurant. He chose a bag full of sugar snap peas. And he pretty much ate the whole bag. Vegetables are always the first thing he eats from his plate. This is genetic because I’m the same way. It’s just funny to see it coming from a 2-year old.

2) He always has to be held. It has eased up a bit as he’s gotten older, but not much. If we are walking and we say no when he asks to be held, he’ll run up in front of us and stand in our path again and again until we decide it’s easier to just hold him than to trip over him. This method works very well for him! When he was younger, he wouldn’t even let his feet touch the floor…ever. I had to hold him while I was trying to make dinner, do my makeup or hair or while pushing a grocery cart. Sitting him on the counter near me or in the grocery cart seat was not an acceptable substitution. I’m saying all this in past tense because it’s not as often now, but he did some of these things to me today, so it’s still happening. I try to soak it up because someday, he probably won’t want me to hold him anymore.

3) He has this little “nest” he has to create when he goes to bed. This includes all of the following items: His 3 stuffed animals (a hot pink care bear, a red dinosaur and bolt), blankie, binky, pillow pet and water. All must be arranged just so. I guess now that his binky’s gone, he has a few other crutches to lean on during sleep time. :)

4) He always has to “rock it” before bed. Lots of kids like to be rocked before they go to bed, but the quirky part about it is that it’s more of an OCD thing for him. If he’s stayed up really late and is so tired and ready to go to sleep, he’ll ask us to “rock it” and as soon as we hit the chair he whispers into our ear “I’m ready to go in my crib”. There is no substitution for this. No standing hug or standing rock…we must sit on the chair even if it’s for ½ second. His whisper is the best. He always whispers that into our ear when he’s ready and sometimes it’s so quiet I can barely hear it.

5)When he wants to get our attention, he’ll take both his hands and put them on each side of our face and turn our face right to his to talk. He’s been doing that since he was under a year old. I guess it’s the only way he can ensure we are listening to whatever important thing he has to say.

I love my sweet Jake. He really is such a well-behaved kid. He’s such a boy and loves balls, sports, cars, trains and the usual boy stuff. He’s obsessed with Toy Story. He talks a LOT. He loves to show off and be the center of attention. Happy Birthday to my little buddy.

My Little Kindergartener

2011-09-03T16:22:00.004-06:00

On the first day of Kindergarten, Hailee's school invited the parents to be there during their orientation. First they painted their school bags.

Then they had the kids do this really cute treasure hunt with a list of clues that led them to several different locations throughout the school. It taught them where everything is and it was fun too. When they found everything, they got to bring the checklist to the front desk to get a prize.

Hailee was really nervous on her first day of school because she didn't know anyone. After they were done painting their bags, I turned around for a moment and heard some squealing. Hailee had found one of her friends from her daycare! Neither of them knew they'd be going to the same school, let alone the same class. She was pretty excited. I've, of course, encouraged her to still try to make new friends.

See? Same girl:) Small world.

Hailee is doing really well in Kindergarten. On that first day, she told me within the first 5 minutes, "mom, I'm already getting used to this place". It seems mom's anticipation of the challenges for my children are much worse than the actual challenges. She has been fine with the change. She says she likes it. Love that little girl!

Happy Birthday Jake!

2011-09-02T22:03:00.001-06:00

Hailee's first day of Kindergarten!

2011-08-15T11:52:00.001-06:00

Onward & Upward

2011-06-28T21:16:00.004-06:00

My sweet Hailee had her preschool graduation and it was a very bittersweet moment...a little emotional for mom, but fine for Hailee, of course, because she doesn't understand all the implications of what this means. She's been going to school with some of these kids since
she was a baby and they are best, best friends. They are all splitting off to go to different Kindergartens and she will likely never see many of them again. Oh, that is so hard to take in.

This is her sweet (boy)friend, Declan. They've already got their wedding planned. I have pictures of them holding hands when they were 3-months old! She will miss him.

This is her best friend, Kylee. This day of the graduation was Kylee's last day going to school there. Hailee will keep going there until Kindergarten starts, so I know she is going to miss having Kylee there. Luckily her mom and I are already planning future play-dates, although the pessimist in me knows that will only last so long...oh, the pain of growing older...or the pain of watching your kids grow older...Somehow, I didn't get pictures of her with the other girls in her "clique (I hate to say)", Bella & Aspen. Those kids have always stuck close together because they are the ones that have been together there since they were newborns.

They sang some cute songs. One of them was called "Zoophonics Kids", to which I already knew all the words because Hailee has sung it in the car many, many times. :)

Getting her diploma. Sniffle, sniffle.

They released balloons into the air to represent moving onward and upward to bigger and better things.

Sniffle, sniffle, sniffle...

They had to create an "all about me" poster to display at the graduation. Hailee was very excited about creating hers.

Hailee with her sweet teacher, Maria. This was Maria's last day, as well. Hailee is going to miss her too!

The very proud parents!

Every time I tell her to stop growing she just laughs and says "mom, that's the way it's supposed to be!" Love you my sweet girl!

Fishing with Dad

2011-06-17T20:56:00.001-06:00

Today was the annual father's day fishing trip. Hailee had a great
time despite her apparent disgust toward dead fish. She's excited to
eat them though!

See the full gallery on Posterous

Dad's 60th Birthday!

2011-05-30T16:00:00.003-06:00

We had an awesome party for my dad's 6oth birthday party. It was a surprise, he just thought he was going to dinner with my mom. We had family, friends old and new and his coworkers there! He had lots of people there to support him!

We held it at his favorite restaurant, Sarasota's. The food was fabulous and they provided great service! The room was gorgeous too. I thought I'd give them a shout out because I'd highly recommend it to anyone, they really were great!

My dad's birthday is on St. Patrick's Day, but they were out of town, so we held it two weeks later. We still wanted to go with the Irish theme though. Here are some pictures of the party!

My sweet littles...

The big moment!

Grandpa with his little man.

And his favorite daughter.

The after-party.

We love you dad! Happy 60th!
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Memory & Tic Tac Toe

2011-05-14T00:19:00.002-06:00

Everyone probably thought I gave up on the quiet book, but I didn't! I'm still hanging in there! I had been working on a different page that I became frustrated with, so I did take a break for awhile. Then I told myself I don't have to go in order, so I just moved on to a page that was more appealing! I made a couple of games for the kids to play. I worked and reworked this in my head a thousand times, but this is the best way I could figure to make this work. Essentially one of the pages is completely blank and serves as the "game board". For the Tic Tac Toe game, I actually have the lines for the game in the pocket. It works, I guess. If anyone has a better idea on how to spruce up my game board, let me know! I do love how the games turned out though. The pictures are pretty self explanatory, so here you go!

Sent via Web Albums App

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Easter Pics

2011-05-03T09:16:00.001-06:00

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My Favorite Things II

2011-03-29T21:30:00.005-06:00

Once I shared a few of my favorite things with you. Now it's time for more! Sometimes it's the little things that just make you giddy, so you have to just go all out and let yourself enjoy them! You can click on each of these pictures below to go to their official sites.

Threading. Ok, so it hurts like a &%($!, but no more than waxing or tweezing. The fabulous thing about this method of removing eyebrows and other facial hair is how much it improves my appearance. I don't know what it is, but somehow it just shapes my eyebrows in a way that I've never had from other methods. I get mine done at a kiosk in the mall.

Netflix. It's just awesome. If you like movies, you just have to try it. For a while, every time we were giving a gift, this is what we gave. You know, you just want everyone to experience the same things you enjoy, right. Well, every single person continued their subscription. Not only is it so convenient to just be able to toss the DVD in the mailbox when you're done watching and having a new one arrive within two days, but the streaming alone is worth it. If you have an XBox, Wii or Apple TV, you can stream movies to your TV. If not, you can just stream them to your laptop. It's awesome. What else can I say?

The Pioneer Woman Cooks: This is my favorite cookbook ever. This is not just a book of recipes. This woman has stories in here about her life on a farm, which is hilariously written since she grew up a "city girl". She also has step by step pictures on how to create each recipe. It's perfect for someone like me, who reads cookbooks cover to cover. Reading each step of the recipes is entertaining in itself because she's so funny and real. I also now subscribe to her blog, which is one of my favorite things to read when I have a spare minute. Oh, and the recipes in this book are good too!
IPAD: Everyone needs one. Everyone. In any walk of life, in any circumstance. I just can't come up with any scenario in which an individual would not need this device. ChorePad: I really should do an entire post on my favorite apps, but I thought I'd at least give a shout out to this one here. They actually linked to my blog on their facebook page, I'm famous! :) This is a great app! It is extremely easy to use, customizable and the kids LOVE it! You can set up a profile for each kid, program in what chores you want them to have and how many stars each chore is worth. You can also set up any rewards you want how many stars each rewards costs. My kids have "saved their stars" to buy things like pillow pets, 30 minutes tv time, ice cream date, songs for their ipod. I've used similar apps and I love the feature that each chore can be worth different amounts since all chores are certainly not created equal! My kids love that they can easily mark off when they've done a chore and they love to watch and listen to the stars rack up on their total. "Ching, Ching, Ching!" Oh, and my kids are 2 and 5, so they don't have to be able to read since you can add graphics to every chore. Also, the creators listen to user feedback and update it all the time.

Hope you all enjoy! Let me know what things make you just hap, hap, happy!

55 in 500

2011-03-22T21:57:00.012-06:00

You know how there are always a million things on your mind that you want to work on, projects you want to finish, activities you've always wanted to do and it seems like they never get done? Well, writing this list made me realize why...at least for me anyway. How could anyone ever do anything when there are this many things circulating through your head?! The scary part is how easy it was to come up with a list of 55 things. It was actually hard to narrow them down!

This is an idea I got from a couple of the blogs I follow. It is really just a means of giving myself some accountability for getting things done and the personal recognition in seeing things come off my "to-do" list. Things I want to do with a deadline! I'll come back to this post and edit them as I finish them. I broke them out into categories and after I realized how selfish I was, I added the "service" section and moved everything I'm working on for my kids to that section. I'm serving them, right? Ok, that makes me feel better. Even so, I do really have to get some of these things done! So,here they are:

55 Things to Do in 500 Days
Start: March 23rd, 2011
Finish: August 5th, 2012

Projects
~~1. Sand & Paint Hutch~~ - Ty painted it for me while I was on vacation! 5/28/11.2. Finish sewing living room pillows
3. Create 2010 family "yearbook"
4. Paint DVD holder

5. Paint frame
6. Hang picture
7. Scan old pictures8. Start on 2011 family "yearbook"

Service
9. Finish quiet book
10. Remodel dollhouse for Hailee
11. Create 1st 5 years of Hailee book
12. Make a felt playhouse for the kids
~~13. Make felt food for the kids~~ - Completed 4/9/11 No need to make! I found these at IKEA!
14. Scan old pictures from mom and dad
15. Create digital scrapbook of growing up
16. Find a service to provide someone in need monthly for 6 months

Health & Fitness

~~17. Get weight down to 130~~ - Completed 9/11
~~18. Run a 5K~~ - Completed 5/27/11! Time 36:30. Another one 7/4/11! Time: 35:40.
19. Incorporate fruit or vegetables into EVERY meal for a week
~~20. Get up to and maintain 3 miles running~~ - Completed 5/27/11

Family

21. ~~Throw 60 b-day party for dad~~ Completed 4/2/11 Post to come!
~~22. Go on a family vacation (at least twice/yr.)~~ Disneyland-May, Bear Lake-July.

~~23. Take a spontaneous weekend trip to somewhere close~~ - St. George Oct. 2011
24. Get family pictures taken
~~25. Go on a picnic~~ Completed 4/19/11 & 5/7/11
26. Hike at Snowbasin with the kids

Personal

27. Go to the cannery
28. Read my GPS running watch manual
29. Write in journal at least once a month for 6 months
30. Finish reading "The Lost Symbol"
31. Finish reading "The Choice"
32. Take a sewing class
33. Sell something(s) on eBay, Craigslist or KSL

Finance

~~34. Complete a no spend month~~ - Completed October 2011 (More like less spending than usual month)
~~35. Call gift card companies to find current balances~~ - Completed 4/21/11 $392.96!!

36. Use up ALL my gift cards

37. Sell dining table and chairs

Home & Organization
38. Clean out fridge weekly for two months
~~39. Create daily "stay home day" schedule~~ - Completed August 2011
40. ~~Create chores for kids~~ - Completed 3/23/11 Using Chore Pad
41. Have kids do chores on home day before play for two months
~~42. Organize pantry~~ - September 2011

43. Organize hall closet - 1 shelf 4/15/11
44. Clean out under stairs
45. Clean out storage shed
~~46. Organize bathrooms under sinks~~ - 1 bathroom 4/15/11, 2 bathroom Oct. 2011
47. Organize kids clothes - Halfway there!
48. Go through house and get rid of EVERYTHING we don't use or love
49. Revamp office space

Food

50. Create a 10-meal menu rotation
51. Create a batch of freezer meals
~~52. Plant a garden~~ - Completed 5/22/11

53. Maintain garden
54. ~~Create a "staples" grocery list~~ - Completed 3/23/11 Get it here
55. Cook my way through a cookbook

Goodbye Jasper

2011-03-17T20:44:00.007-06:00

I don't even have the words to describe how I felt about this little guy. I loved him for many, many years and I wasn't ready for him to go. I knew it would happen someday, but I still wasn't prepared for it. I don't expect anyone to REALLY understand how I feel because he was just a bird, afterall...but to me, he was more. I had him for 20 years, so he's all I know. I think the silence will be hard. I will miss the chirping, squawking, singing, whistling and talking. It will be quiet...
After I got him, my older brother made a tape that we would play for him when we'd leave the house. He would say over and over a whistle "Woo, woo"...like you'd do when see someone attractive:) and then "Hello". Also, everyone was assigned to say hello to him often so he could learn to say it. Then one day he did! "Hello Jasper! Hello Jasper!" We always said "Jasper" when we said hello to him, so he learned how to say his own name! I heard "Hello Jasper! Hello Jasper!" and a whistle "Woo, woo" 100 times a day for the next 20 years! I will miss that!

He loved to play in the bath.
Shortly after I got married, I had Jasper on my shoulder while I was cleaning the house. I went to take the garbage out to the car port (duh!) and a gust of wind came and off Jasper flew. High, high away. I cried and cried. I was so worried about what would happen to him and I was also so angry with myself for being so stupid. I proceeded to drive around the neighborhood asking everyone if they had seen him. I even got the mail-lady involved. I put his cage in my front yard and left it there for days thinking he might come back to it. I made posters with pictures of him and hung them everywhere. Everyone I knew was thinking there was no chance I was ever getting him back. I actually saved that poster, but I don't know where it is right now. One day, a little girl who had found my bird hopping around on her back deck, saw my poster on her way to school. This was in March and he had been missing for four days! They had put him in their dog kennel. My mom received the call while I was at work and picked him up. I was completely shocked when I could hear a bird chirping down the hall in the middle of the hospital and my mom came in with a bag...with a bird in it! He jumped right to me! After work we took him to a vet to have him checked out and he fell asleep on my shoulder in the car...he'd been through a lot. That was 10 years ago. I was so lucky to have been able to find him and have him continue to be part of my life.

When I got him for my 10th birthday, I never could've imagined that he would actually still be around when I had my own children!

My kids loved playing with him.
If we're being honest here though, he was an ornery thing! I actually snapped this picture a split second before Jake burst into tears and was bleeding slightly.
My heart aches for him and I will miss him terribly. It's hard not to wish I had done things differently. Like say goodnight to him the night before he died, or do a blog post on his 20th birthday like I had planned, or gotten him out of his cage to play a little more often. I know I can't do that to myself though and I know that he did have a good long life, with lots of love!

"Hello Jasper! Hello Jasper!"...Goodbye Jasper. I love you!

First Two Quiet Book Pages

2011-03-11T20:15:00.010-07:00

I finished the first two pages of my quiet book. I love how they turned out. I found that I could've kept sewing little clothes for the next 5 years, but I had to stop at some point! It was so fun to come up with an idea for the clothes and then see it come together. Maybe if I still have the energy after I finish the rest of the book, I will make more clothes. I thought this was a pretty good start.

They each have a little pocket to hold the clothes.

Here's what they look like with some clothes on.

Close-ups of my favorites.

Hailee actually designed some of these, which I thought was so fun. She was very particular about the pink skirt and shirt. After I had the flowers on them both, I mentioned that I just needed to add the sun and butterfly to the shirt. She was adamant that she had drawn it on the skirt, not the shirt. So I dug through my bag and found what she had drawn...and she had been right.

She also designed Jake's sailboat shirt.
Now onto the next pages!

Healthy Changes

2011-03-07T21:26:00.007-07:00

I have always been big on eating healthy food (or at least my interpretation of what I thought was healthy). Sure, I eat plenty of junk food along with the good stuff, but my philosophy has always been that the crap food is ok to eat as long as you're eating plenty of nutritious foods too. Admittedly this has also been extremely easy for me since I LOVE vegetables of all sorts in any shape or form. Vegetables are really my favorite food. Fruit, not so much. I can eat some, but mostly I just opt for the veggies. In addition to that, I have no desire for sweets, never have. That is probably a big part of the reason I'm not a big fan of fruit. Chocolate, cakes, cookies...yuck. It's weird, I know. I love to tell my kids that in elementary school I used to trade my chocolate chip cookies for others canned green beans! True story! Apparently, this is genetic because Jake refuses to eat candy. He does like chocolate, but not candy. Since he was little, little, he would spit candy out of his mouth if you put it in there (it was Hailee pushing this by the way, not his parents). People tell me I'm lucky that I don't like sweets, but there are plenty of other junk food items that I can't live without. Chips, popcorn, fried foods, mmmm.
My biggest problem with being healthy has always been exercise. I hate it, bad. I always said that I will do plenty of recreational activities that will keep me fit. Over the years, our lifestyle has slowly changed until I realized recently that I was living a sedentary lifestyle. The most activity we got (on a regular basis) was walking the kids from ride to ride in Kiddie Land at Lagoon every Saturday. My job doesn't require much movement either. It probably doesn't count walking from one clinic to another or from one meeting to another a few times a day. I take the elevator AND ride the shuttle, meaning I don't even have to walk across the parking lot! The shuttle drops me off right at the front door! Ty and I even bought a one year gym membership a couple of years ago and I think we both could count on one hand the number of times we went.

I do have a point to all this rambling...Being someone who has managed to maintain the same weight for the past 10 years, even after having two kids, I have felt like I didn't need to make any changes. But my body certainly didn't look the same and I didn't feel the same. So I started running. I never thought I would run. I'm not here to say, "oh, just try it, you'll like it. It's addicting!" (I heard that a lot), because none of that has been true in my case. Honestly I thought I COULDN'T run because I hated it. One of my coworkers was telling me one day how he runs, a lot, and he hates it. I've been waiting all this time to hopefully come across some type of exercise that I would enjoy and that comment made me realize I don't have to like it! It's funny how sometimes it takes someone to just make a comment that makes something "click" like that. So I run, not a lot, around 2 miles 2 days/week. It's definitely been crucial that I have friends to run with or I never would've stuck to it his long. I am here to say, though, that I never thought I could do it, and I can, that I definitely "tolerate it" more than I used to and that after about 30 weeks of running, I have some results. I've lost 5 lbs! That may not seem like a lot, especially since it took such a long time to lose it, but I think that's a lot since I've been the same weight for 10 years. Also, when you think about 5 lbs. of fat, it's kind of amazing to think that much has actually come off my body. Where is it?! Where did it go?! Running (of all things) has been easy for me to stick to. You just go and in 30 minutes, you're done.

Here's me running. I had Ty snap a picture while I was on the move.
Ok, so I'm just trying to break up my VERY long-winded post with some pictures:)

Although I have not intentionally changed my eating habits, I realize they are changing. All of a sudden I'm grossed out by foods I've been eating for years. I actually get sick to my stomach when I eat too much fried food. I ate a bowl of fruity pebbles the other day and it made me nauseous! WTH?! I have been following a blog, which I've mostly been reading for entertainment sake and not for the purpose of actually changing any of my eating habits, but this guy has done some serious research and I'm fascinated with his blog. In fact, his blog was my original purpose for this post. I wanted everyone to know it is out there. He has a great idea of coming up with one healthy change each week, so you'll have made 52 lifestyle changes by the end of the year. Here are a few of my favorite posts.

Waking Up In The Bread Isle: He talks to a grocery store manager about how they decide where to shelf each type of bread (in his grocery store, there were 72 different kinds). The answer: Slot Fees! The bread companies actually pay for where they want their bread placed on the shelf! The manager said they make more from slot fees than for selling the actual bread. He also found that only 3 out of 72 passed his "test" for healthy bread (which is 100% whole grain and contains more grams of fiber than sugar).

The Short and Sweet of It: I love this quote from the blog...In 1925 the noted English scientist R. H. A. Plimmer warned: “The Americans, with their love of candy, are the largest sugar eaters in the world. Incidentally, cancer and diabetes, two scourges of civilization, have increased proportionally to the sugar consumption.” Plimmer’s genius was to make the connection between sugar and chronic diseases. His failing was an excess of optimism about our ability to change: “ . . . as we now realize our predicament it should not be a difficult matter to rectify our mistakes.” Nothing was rectified; our sugar intake grew and grew all through the 20^th century.

Anyway, I have just learned a ton from reading it so I wanted to share it with you. I have added his blog "Word of Wisdom Living" link to my sidebar. Note: In case you were wondering, despite it's name, the blog has no affiliation to the LDS church or it's teachings.

New Project

2011-02-24T21:48:00.005-07:00

I'm not a crafter, never have been. I have, however, found a little project that I am totally stoked about! I am going to do this (I'm telling myself this because it's a rare occasion that I actually finish a personal project that I've started...hence the moving on to this new project before I finish the living room remodel...I'll finish it eventually...I think). Anyway, more than I am not a crafter, I am NOT an artist. Hopefully from these pictures, you will be able to tell what plans I have in mind for this...wait for it...quiet book! I assure you, it is going to be the cutest quiet book you have ever seen. I'm also not creative (wow, I'm really dogging myself on this post, huh? I'm just not a right brained person, no big deal, I have my qualities), so I'm just copying the cutest pages I've seen from other books and mixing them up to form my own VERY cutest quiet book. Here are the blogs I used to pull most of my ideas from. I did add and change a few things here and there.

joeandanna.blogspot.com (She's working on hers right now too and I can't wait to see her finish it because it is one of the cutest I've ever seen)

quietbook.blogspot.com (I love her picnic & food idea)

homemadebyjill.blogspot.com (I love the simplicity of her pages, but they are so cute! The barn and the paper doll ideas were my favorite)

Here are the lovely sketches for my page plans (each quarter page below will be one whole page of the book):

I'll post pictures as I get them done.

Christmas Stockings

2011-02-01T21:32:00.004-07:00

We had a little problem with the stockings we were using for Christmas. Ty was using the one he'd had growing up, Hailee had one she'd gotten from her teacher at preschool, and Jake's and mine were from the dollar store. I thought it was about time we had some nice stockings for Christmas. If I had known how hard it would be, I really don't know if I would've done it! These look very simple, but I don't know how to sew. They took me forever! I really love the way they turned out though! Just thought I'd share them with you!

I even lined the insides...

New Year, New Me!

2011-01-16T22:31:00.005-07:00

I am too ruled by my emotions. I'm 30. I should be able to be in control of myself. I fear I'm teaching this characteristic to my children. Emotion is a good thing, it is, but I need to be in better control of it. So, my first new years resolution is to speak to my children calmly and in complete control regardless of the situation. I think my tendency is to "tune out" some of the minor annoyances of them fighting with each other until it becomes too much and I fly off the handle. Then it's timeouts and crying and hurt feelings and me wishing I had handled the situation better. Now I see my kids having a freak attack when things don't quite go their way and I know exactly where they learned it. The weird part about it is I haven't always been that way. Yes, I've always been emotional, but it seems this overreaction thing has only emerged over the last couple of years. Maybe my parents would disagree. I am fine one second and a moment later without warning, I'm thrown into this fury I can't control. I love my kids beyond words and I'm trying to be the best mom I can be. I want them to be able to take real life situations and rationally think through how to deal with them. It is my responsibility to teach them that and what better way than by example? I suppose finding a solution wouldn't only be for their benefit, but mine as well. I don't want to be so controlled my emotions.

I feel grateful all the time. I am continuously filled with gratitude...for everything that my family and my in-laws do for us, for the blessings we have; good health, a good marriage, a nice home, good jobs, good friends, etc. etc. etc. I truly just feel thankful everyday for the wonderful life we are leading and all the wonderful people we share it with. What I need to improve on is expressing that gratitude. There's always a "thank-you note" on my to do list that never seems to get done or an act of service to a family member or friend who needs it that I think about, but never quite follow through on. I don't think "thoughts" of showing gratitude count since the person I'm thinking of showing gratitude to never know that I thought about it. Ty always says "the road to hell is paved with good intentions". I think this is exactly what that means!! So, that's my next resolution this year, to express my gratitude outwardly.

We've gotten into this terrible habit for dinnertime. My family is seated up at the bar while I stand on the other side "serving" them throughout the meal. I always eat standing up and I always eat cold food! I'm grabbing a drink or a napkin or wiping up a spill or cutting meat...you get the point. Oh, and the TV is always on. Wow, it's appalling, I know. I'm not really even sure how we got there, but we're done with it. Ok, not completely done, but it's happening less often for sure. So resolution #3...Eat dinner at the table three nights/week. Three nights is reasonable and achievable. We've done it a few times now and tonight Jake actually said "mom, I want to eat dinner at this table". Yay! Getting the kids on board is half the battle (Ty being the other half). Hailee still keeps expecting me to allow her to turn the TV on, but I think she's getting the idea. They have been helping to bring food over to the table and set the table, so it's giving them something to help with while I'm cooking, as opposed to crying on the floor next to my feet wanting me to hold them or play with them. It's turning into a group effort. Also, we got this fun little game for Christmas that you play at the dinner table and Hailee loves it. It has cards that have you do different things. One example is one person closes their eyes and everyone hides something from the table. The person with their eyes closed then has to figure out what's missing. Another one is one person has to think of a food and everyone else has to ask questions about it until they can figure out what it is. Anyway, it's for families with kids aged 3-6, so it's perfect for us. It helps keep Hailee sitting at the table anyway.

So, of course I have a few other things that are just ongoing things I'm working on such as exercising regularly (ugh) and trying to be more organized. I'm not trying to set specific goals or anything as I don't want to set myself up for failure, but I'm just trying to be more conscientious of those things. I've been running...I know, seriously? Yes, running. I hate it, I hate every step I take, but for some reason, I've stuck with this longer than any other kind of exercise I've ever tried to do. The hard part is I haven't gotten any results whatsoever; no weight loss, no mood change, not sleeping better, not feeling more energy, nothing. It's hard to stick to something like that when you get nothing in return, but I'm just doing it because it's supposed to be good for me, right? And for the organizing thing, I actually hired a professional organizer. Literally couldn't do it myself. She's been helping me a ton. She's got some great ideas and I already feel less overwhelmed with paper and tasks and all those things that I worry might fall through the cracks. That peace of mind is worth a lot.

So I have a lot to work on this year!! I don't usually formalize my New Years Resolutions or anything, but I've been feeling very reflective lately and just know I need to focus my efforts on some specific areas this year. So who knows if anyone actually read this post all the way through, but I just needed to put this down for myself. Thanks for listening!

Steamboat

2011-01-08T22:12:00.007-07:00

We had the opportunity to go on a little family trip to Steamboat with some great friends! We had such a great time! It was low-key and relaxing and just what we needed! As usual, I can't narrow down my pictures very well. I thought I did pretty well narrowing it down to twenty-something out of the 250 pictures we actually took, so you're welcome! :)

We stayed in a really nice condo with with our friends and our kids got along great. The first day we were there, the kids just played on the play set and got to know each other better.
Our condo in the background.
A little hike/leisurely walk up to a waterfall.
It was beautiful.

Words can't describe how much I love this picture.

We wanted to go horseback riding, but we were there during the "off-season". Well, that didn't stop us! We drove around until we found some horses and just asked the guy there if they could let our kids ride around the track. Suh-weet!

The kids loved it. Mine have never ridden a horse before, so it was a whole new experience for them.
Jake wasn't so sure at first (as is obvious in the picture below), but he got the hang of it.
See, you can even see him smiling!
Hailee, Maren, Jesse & Jake...
Another playground with some pretty cool features.
We went for a walk by the river and the kids decided to try to see if they could find any fish in the water below the bridge. It sure made for a cute picture.
We ran into some crazy weird wild animals on our way back and the kids just hopped right on for a ride!Hailee tied with Kirk for the lead on bowling and she still talks about it.

Another playground. I think the kids went to every park in the city!Unfortunately, we did not bring our camera for some of my favorite parts of this trip. Most notably:

- Steamboat is famous for it's hot springs and even though it was cold outside (60 degrees), their outdoor pool facility was AMAZING. It had several different pools and hot tubs that were about 98'ish degrees. We spent over 3 hours in there, it was awesome.

- We each traded off watching the kids so we could have our own date night. Ty and I went to a restaurant that I think I will seriously drive back there just to eat there again. It was so dang good. It was called Mambo Italiano. Ty liked it as much as I did (well almost). It is a rare occurrence for a restaurant to impress both Ty and me at the same time since we are so different in our food preferences, but it was just amazing. I had to mention it because I loved it so much.

- There was this little place called "The Pottery Wheel". You go pick out a piece of pottery and paint it with your glaze. Then you come pick it up a few days later after it's been fired. It was a fun activity for the kids. Marcy and I took Maren and Hailee while the boys were all home napping. Hailee painted a unicorn statue (that I tried to talk her out of) and a little bowl. I made a birthday plate. We got to pick them up on our way out of town.

Here are the kids just relaxing together before bed one night, with an ice cream snack!
And Hailee, smothering her brother with love.
Good night!

You Belong With Me

2011-01-08T20:52:00.005-07:00

I promise this video is worth watching. This is my favorite rendition of this song performed by my own little Hailee. Just check out the passion she puts into her singing. No coaching or choreography assistance from us. This is all Hailee. We are lucky enough to be able to get daily, unlimited performances just like this. AWESOME.

Basketball Birthday

2010-12-30T22:00:00.000-07:00

For Jake's birthday, we had a little party for him at school, so all his friends could be there!
Hailee was such a big helper, passing out plates and napkins! Proud sister.The birthday boy.
Yum!

Doesn't he have the cutest friends?!

Jake's Birthday Party

2010-12-29T21:35:00.012-07:00

My cute little guy is two! He turned two in September and I'm only now getting to actually posting the pictures. We were surrounded by lots of people that love my little baby so much!

I couldn't bear to cut out very many pictures, therefore I have created many collages for your enjoyment where you can view smaller pictures of all the wonderful things I want to show you:)

First, I was motivated by the extravagant birthday party that Ty threw for me, so I decided to go all out! I debated between basketball and Old MacDonald's Farm for the theme, since those are Jake's two favorite things. MacDonald won out because I figured basketball would probably be an acceptable theme for a birthday party in later years. I did, however, throw him a mini basketball birthday party at his school, but that's for another post. We served "chicken wings" (buffalo wings), "haystacks" (pretzels), "little piggies" (hot dogs) and other fun festive food.
We played lots of fun games.

Pin the Hat on the Cow!

Check out the middle pictures. Jake figured out how to beat the system. Duh, you just lift the blindfold up so you can see.

Duck, Duck, Goose!

Puzzles!

UNO Moo!

Haystack Treasure Search!

Note to self: Many people are allergic to hay.

The cake may look simple, but it took me FOREVER.
Our best attempt at getting a picture of all the cousins together.
Our loved ones were all there to share Jake's special day...if only I could've done a better job at taking pictures of all of them...
I dropped my rubber duck!
I think I can reach it!
Jake and his corn again:)
Just having fun.
Make a Wish!
And of course, TONS of awesome gifts. Jake is one spoiled (and loved) kid!
Thanks to both of our families for all of the wonderful support you give to us. We cherish these wonderful times together. Our kids know that they are loved.

My Cooking Blog!

2010-11-23T21:43:00.003-07:00

I just thought I'd put a plug in for my cooking/food blog for those of you that don't know of it's existence or those of you that have long forgotten about it. I've been on a blogging hiatus for awhile, but I've added some new posts recently. There's also a link to it on my sidebar. Here it is...

cookinbrooke.blogspot.com

FIVE

2010-11-12T22:51:00.002-07:00

Happy Birthday "week" to my little Hailee. She's loving all the attention this week. Lots of phone calls, gifts and parties, she's just glowing! She woke up at 5 AM on her birthday to ask us to measure how tall she was. I guess she thinks she literally gets "bigger" on her birthday. She is so much fun and makes us laugh everyday. She loves her little brother and helps take good care of him. Love you my sweet little girl!

Birthday Party

2010-08-28T20:30:00.016-06:00

I hit the big 30 this year and my sweet husband threw me the most awesome party ever! He put a ton of work into it and it really turned out so great. He did have some helpers too. When he told everyone at work he was throwing me a party, they all jumped in to help him.

The decorations were awesome.

Every level of detail was carefully thought out.
He even included a "Twilight" corner at my party. Do I have the best husband in the world or what?!
And look who he invited!!
Everyone anxiously waited for their turn to hang out with him.
My mom was in charge of the cake. She did an amazing job!! Does anyone recognize it? It's a replica of Bella's cake from New Moon! My dad cut my name out of wood (twice...my mom made him do it again to get the font right, but it was worth it!) and it looks just like Bella's cake!
He also had "my favorite things" throughout, which I thought was an extra special touch. That of course includes diet coke...
And popcorn. He spent a ton of time using our popcorn machine to make batches and batches of this stuff that I love. He packaged them all up in disposable popcorn bags and had them at the party. Why we do not have a picture of that, I don't know!!

There were also finger foods around, which are another favorite of mine. Again, if I'd had the camera that night, I surely would've taken pictures of the food! Here's the menu though:

Skewers of Fresh Mozzerella, Basil & Tomatoes with Balsamic & Basil Oil
Asiago Stuffed Tiny Red Potatoes
Cambezola Pear & Toasted Pecan Canape with Proscuitto
Hot Shrimp Kisses in Orange Chipotle BBQ Sauce
Strawberries
Eclairs
Sugar Cookies
Candy Treats

So awesome and delicious!!

Here's his big helper, Dawn. She's an interior designer, so she knows style. In fact, he told me she even overrode him on a couple of decisions. :) Thanks to Dawn and everyone else who participated in making this such a wonderful event!
Here's my mom and dad finishing up the cake.
Seriously awesome cake, mom!
Here I am arriving at the big event.
The kids even had a great time. Thanks to everyone for their help with babysitting, so I could socialize with my guests!
Lots of guests came...family, friends and coworkers. I felt so loved!!
Thank you to my wonderful husband for pulling this off and for everyone who helped with it. Especially my parents and Ty's parents. They are always so helpful and supportive of everything we do and we appreciate it so much! It was such a great birthday and one that I will never forget!!

The Big 10!

2010-08-16T22:37:00.004-06:00

Happy Anniversary to my sweet, wonderful husband of ten years today!

Here we are 15 years ago at a high school Christmas dance...scary!
And no, we were not high school sweethearts, if anyone is wondering.

Here we are on the big day 10 years ago!
And here is our family today (ok, maybe a year ago, but close enough).
I'm so glad I married him, he is the best husband and father a girl could ask for! Love you babe!

Arizona Fun

2010-07-11T09:17:00.007-06:00

I just thought I'd finish posting pictures from our AZ trip, which was in March, but better late than never, I guess. I'll try to spare you most of the commentary since there are loads of pictures here :).

Cousin bath time!
Jake spent a lot of time on this tricycle and Bryce (my brother) spent a lot of time pushing him around. Jake preferred Bryce do it and he just couldn't resist Jake's continual requests because he's just too darn cute.
Poor Hailee ended up sick one day. Luckily it really was only ONE day. It's no fun to spend your vacation like this...Oh, and if you know Hailee, you know she doesn't just fall asleep on the couch in the middle of the day like this. Poor girl.
Outdoor playground at the mall where we had a little picnic.
Kaleena put together this cute little family home evening. The girls had to follow clues around like a treasure hunt. They loved it!
A little victory dance after they found the prizes (the paper heart necklaces w/a message that I unfortunately can't remember).
The kids and I were able to get out to Glendale one night to visit the Stones (Ty's sister's family) . Here's Jake feeding the ducks. I think he ate more of the bread than he actually shared with the ducks.
Brady taught Jake some skateboarding skills at the park.
Look how Jake is looking at Brady...he looks so enamored.
This boy loves the swing and his sister had a blast pushing him.
This boy was a born basketball player. Look at that form! He is obsessed with basketball and he does NOT get that from his parents.
Here are all the cousins except Carly. Unfortunately I took this after Carly went to a neighbor's house to babysit. Jake was actually crying because we had just told him it was time to go.
We had a fun celebration of St. Patrick's Day, all day long. It started with this fancy schmancy table set for breakfast,which included all green foods, of course.
The girls go matching dresses from Grandma and Grandpa.
Kaleena had this cute idea to show the kids a bunch of ingredients to make a special salad that everyone was going to help with. We distracted them for a minute and when we brought the girls back into the kitchen, we found that the leprechaun's had taken all of our ingredients! I thought Hailee was going to cry she felt so bad for us.
We decided they couldn't have gotten far because we only had the ingredients moments ago, so we urged them to go look for them outside. It turned out the leprechauns had hidden all of the ingredients around the yard and along with the different ingredients, the leprechauns had left stickers and bracelets for the kids!
It was also Grandpa's birthday, so we had a little party.
What a fun trip. It's always great to be able to spend time with the out-of-staters! Thanks for listening!

Grandma & Grandpa Time

2010-06-23T20:57:00.009-06:00

I have a few things I've been wanting to post for a long time that I've been putting off for various reasons (one of which is described in my previous post). Maybe the other reason is because I never continue with anything consistently. I go on a blogging kick for awhile, then I go off it just like everything else I do (it's genetic). Nothing wrong with that. Rest assured the guilt of not blogging is still there though. I've got that darn obnoxious emotion in every aspect of my life, usually revolving around irrational and trivial "rules" I set for myself. Anyway...I digress.

This post is really about a fun little activity my mom and dad did while we were visiting in AZ. My mom wanted a way of being able to spend some one-on-one time with the grandkids during our trip. Extra bonus, it gave Kaleena and me a break for awhile (ok, I admit it...the activities were so intriguing that I couldn't help but participate in them too. It's only now in writing this that I realize I pretty much defeated the whole purpose of my mom's reason for doing this. Sorry mom!).

So, every evening she would pull out one of these bags.
In it was an activity they would do together. The first day was nail stickers and clear nail polish. You can imagine how well that went off. Two four year old princesses? Come on.
The second day was markers and stickers to color. I'd never seen color them yourself stickers. Lets just say this isn't the last time she's used them, I've had to replace them on a regular basis.

The third day was making candy. That was so much fun, the girls absolutely loved it!
On the last day, the bag included some big huge crayons. They took paper and used them to go outside and get rubbings. I actually did take advantage this time to enjoy some time alone, so all you get is this picture of some rubbings. :)
I just thought it was such a cute idea and wanted my mom to know how much I appreciate her thoughtfulness in creating such great memories and experiences for the kids. Our kids are so lucky to have such wonderful grandparents!

Out with the Old, In with the New

2010-06-23T20:24:00.004-06:00

My laptop was dying. It took a long time for me to admit it. I don't like to spend money, I like to save money. Ty kept telling me I needed a new one and I told him it was fine, I could handle how slow it was, and how long it took to load a picture or video, and how long it took to recognize I had just clicked the mouse...By the time I was having to login with my password, go do something else, and come back to it "later", I realized he might be right. It's one thing to have a slow computer, but to wait upwards of ten minutes just to login? Even when I tried to open Firefox, it would take two minutes to open the browser. By then, I had clicked on it another few times, so a bunch of separate browsers would open all at once. Then (and I still don't get this), if I tried to close one of the ten browsers, it would close all of them! Ok, so it was time. I'd suck it up and spend the money that I would've rather put in savings. I know, rough huh? So he asked me what I wanted. My two requirements, small and cute. He asked about RAM and processors and GIG's and whatever else and I told him I just wanted the bare minimum, I didn't need anything fancy. I almost got the 10 inch, but found out it doesn't support MS Office. Ok, so I did need that. The 11" supported that. 11 inches! How cute is that? And of course when he asked about colors for a little extra $$, I had to do that. You've got to at least add the important things, right? So, here I am, typing this post on my small and cute 11" shiny pink fast(er) computer. Maybe now I will be willing to blog a little more often:)

Summer Pictures

2010-06-18T21:48:00.007-06:00

My little brother took these great summer pictures of my kids. He does such an amazing job. He made my kids look so darn cute (except I suppose part of that is because they are so darn cute)! I love how he captured them just doing what they do. Go check out his photography website at www.brycesidephoto.com.

My Sweet Beautiful Babies

2010-05-19T21:51:00.003-06:00

Renaissance Festival

2010-04-25T21:47:00.000-06:00

Here's a little more of our trip. We went to a renaissance festival the first day we were in Arizona. None of us really knew what to expect, but wow, it was definitely a lot more involved than any of us expected! It was a lot of fun! They had all kinds of shows like drummers, flame jugglers and jousting. They had buildings for arts and crafts, stores and entertainment all over the place.
There were lots of animals to see.
The only food they had was hand held (no utensils or anything), which was interesting for trying to feed kids. They had these humongous Turkey legs, sausage skewers and corn on the cob. Look at those turkey legs! We could not peel Jake off of this corn on the cob. He literally stood in this position for 20 minutes straight while Bryce held the corn for him. He is actually standing up, but leaning into the corn for balance. He didn't even take his mouth off it to swallow and chew! Bryce was such a good sport!
They had rides too. This is Jake's first official ride on anything like this. He looks a little nervous, huh? He did pretty well and his sister took good care of him.
Poor Hailee was doing ok the first part of the day, but started getting really ornery mid-day. I thought it was unusual because she rarely acts like that anymore at her age, but I thought maybe it was because of all the commotion, our 12-hour drive the day before and just being off schedule. But when she first turned down a walk through the fairytale castle and then fell asleep in the stroller in the middle of the festival (and she hasn't taken a nap since she was 3), I knew something was wrong. Poor little thing...
It turned out she had some kind of 24-hour flu bug. I'm glad it didn't last our whole trip. I felt bad that she had to miss out on a few things because she was feeling so awful. She did have a great time most of the day though and it was a lot of fun to do something so unique.

Sick

2010-04-24T22:07:00.005-06:00

Our poor little family has had a rough season with being sick. It's almost starting to be
pretty ridiculous. After my most recent illness, I started counting up how many sicknesses we've had in our little household this winter. I'm not exaggerating when I tell you that I counted 22!

Beginning in October through today we've gone the rounds with everything here and not just little colds here and there, but some really yucky stuff. Hailee and Ty have both had strep throat, at one point Ty had bronchitis so bad he had to get breathing treatments because his oxygen level was so bad. Jake got this weird rash that lasted for two weeks. Hailee had an ear infection that we found when I took Jake in for his rash and she told the doctor her ear was hurting. He took a look and sure enough! Jake got pneumonia (and a chest x-ray for a baby is pretty much the saddest thing I have ever seen). When he went in to follow-up on that to make sure it was gone, they found an ear infection. Hailee got a 24 hr. pukey flu bug (that's the technical term) in AZ. I came back from AZ with a bad cold and gave it to everyone in my family. Jake has had pink eye and most recently an ear infection and sinus infection. I just found out I have strep throat. So there's a handful of what we've experienced this winter. We're all so pumped full of antibiotics, I'm surprised they still work on us!

So....As much as I enjoy the winter, we are definitely ready for some warmer weather. Hopefully at some point, all four of us can be healthy at the same time!

Road Trip

2010-04-11T20:32:00.015-06:00

Me, Hailee and Jake just had the opportunity to go down to Arizona with my little brother (or maybe I invited myself when he announced he and Jen were going...?). Ty had to skip out since he just started a new job, so we missed him, but we did have a great time. My mom and dad ended up coming as well and we stayed at Blake and Kaleena's house with their two kids, so it was quite a full house! I was planning on flying down because that's, of course, my initial instinct, but prices were outrageous and I was starting to think that maybe a road trip would be fun, so we decided to drive it. Now seriously, after planning for this road trip, I deserved a mom of the year award. You can't even begin to imagine how much crap/stuff I brought for them to do! It really was a blast to plan though. I got a bunch of ideas out of my handy dandy 80's "manual" that I've mentioned in previous posts and went to town. Unfortunately I think I was so caught up in "rolling out" all of the activities on the drive that I literally did not get one picture from the actual road trip. How sad is that?

First I made these finger puppets out of gloves. I know, how awesomely lame are these?! Don't look too close, but man, the kids loved them. Out of the nine fingers, you can tell the stories of "The Three Little Pigs", "Goldilocks and the Three Bears", and "Little Red Riding Hood". I think I'm going to add a boy on the extra thumb and then I could do "Hansel & Gretel" (you
know, Goldilocks serving as Gretel).
I bought a really cute book of fairy tales and recorded myself reading each of the stories. I even rang a bell when it was time to turn the page. Ty then did his magic and put them on Hailee's IPOD. She loved listening to the stories and following along in her book.
I sewed some new pillow cases for each of them and bought them some mini pillows just for the road trip. Hailee got to decide which of them would get which colors. The main purpose for them was to attach to the underside of a masonite board which they would put on their laps and it would give them a little "table" to use for coloring in their coloring books or whatever else. When they were done, they could take the pillow out and sleep on it. Obviously this isn't my picture, but this is what I could find online so you get the idea. Now Hailee asks for the lap board every time we get in the car.
Another fun thing I thought I would do is create some felt board activities. When I started looking around online to figure out exactly how to do that, I came across these darling (already made) felt boards. Sometimes, that is just the best way to go...I got the farm one for Jake and the princess one for Hailee. They loved them.Of course we had DVD players. We bought some really handy ones that you can hook together to either play the same movie at the same time or a different movie on each player. That's a required item for a 12+ hour drive. I bought a few movies they'd never seen before. But I was really impressed with myself when I thought to hook up Hailee's Leapfrog Clickstart computer to the DVD players so she could play her (educational) video games in the car! And of course the lap board came in really handy for that! It was such a novelty for her to be able to do this in the car.
Grandma Gibson also came through for the kids. She wasn't coming on the trip, but sent each of them with a bag full of goodies and toys. They had treats, coloring books, crayons, a new book for Jake, some tiny dolls for Hailee and other fun things for them to play with on the road.

All in all, it was a really fun road trip. I was very skeptical about the whole thing (especially with an 18-month-old in tow...especially one that doesn't like to be in cars and never sits still for more than a minute), but it really turned out to be great. The kids were both wonderful and we barely had enough time on the road to fit in all the activities I had planned (not that I was wishing for more time or anything). Jake started to fuss a few times right before lunch and right before we got there. He'd pull on his car seat straps and say "gee out, gee out", but overall, he really did better than I expected. Hailee was really good and started to think it was funny when she'd ask if we were there yet since she knew we weren't. We are going to have the opportunity for a road trip again in June to St. George this time. That one should be a breeze after this loooong one! Also, I'll post about the actual vacation soon. Thanks to all of you who actually made it through this entire post for listening to my rambling! I guess it's not just in person that I do that...:) Hopefully you got a few ideas out of this that you can use. Happy traveling!!

Haircuts

2010-03-31T12:47:00.003-06:00

We took Hailee and Jake to get their haircuts. Jake was NOT happy despite the fact that he was "driving" a car & watching a movie. I posted the pictures that he is not hysterically crying.
Hailee didn't do so well either. She was so scared to get her hair washed, but then she realized it wasn't so bad.
She's been asking me if she could get her hair cut short for a long time and I've been saying no. I finally caved, I guess it is her hair after all, right? So they chopped it, it was very emotional for me.
Here's the finished product (and a goofy face). My biggest concern was that it wouldn't be long enough anymore for me to do cute stuff with it, but I was wrong...that's not the issue. The issue is that she loves it so much, she wants to wear it down every day! She just clips up the side or puts in a headband. Poor me! It does look cute though, and I supposed it's saved me hours of time in the morning. Maybe she'll let me do her hair again someday:)

An Unprecedented Moment!

2010-03-31T12:32:00.003-06:00

Jake's never watched a minute of TV and I swear his little sister was watching full-length movies by his age! Well, I thought I'd give Elmo a try and I caught him in this moment. I love the way he's sitting, so cute:) Granted, it only lasted about 3 minutes, but hey, it's progress!

Mr. Mom

2010-03-03T21:50:00.006-07:00

Well, great news...Ty is back to work and we are back to the daily grind. I actually really loved that he had the opportunity to have this time off to spend with the kids. Also, it made my days off better because I didn't have any work to do, I just got to enjoy the kids since he did all the cleaning, cooking, grocery shopping and various needed projects around the house. It was like having two Saturday's a week too, since the whole family was home, so we got to do a lot of family activities. I know it sounds crazy, but I really am glad we had that opportunity. Besides, now he's working in Ogden, right by the hospital, so he can sometimes pick up the kids or he can swing by and pick me up for lunch. Now I just need to talk him into carpooling with me! I think it would be fun, I'm sure he thinks it would be a nightmare. I bet he enjoys his rides to and from work each day, listening to his own music and podcasts enjoying a little peace and quiet and here I am asking him to drive to work all together with a wife who never stops talking and kids screaming in the back seat. I wonder why he's reluctant? Anyway, I'm going to brag a little bit about my sweet husband here. I wanted to post some pics of his time off with the kids and all the fun things he did with them. He is the best dad and husband in the world and although I know this time was rough for him, he made the most of it and kept a good attitude through the whole thing.

First of all, this is what I left each morning as I went to work. No, Hailee doesn't always sleep in our bed, but has been crawling in around 6:30 some mornings and falls back to sleep there. As you can see, she's a major bed-hogger. So cute...
Ty braved an outing and took the kids to the Hill Air Force Base Museum.
One day, I arrived home to see this in my family room. I have never seen a fort this good in my life, I wouldn't let him take it down for three days!
Here's another one he did upstairs. That is a high quality fort!
He worked really hard on learning how to do Hailee's hair. He was starting to get pretty good at it! Here he was trying to perfect the "bump" look on the front/top of her head. Not too bad, huh? He came up with this method all on his own. I was impressed!
He even used hair accessories. By the way, this is a different day (yes, he did her hair every day).
I loved this idea. He had some huge paper they would use to color on. This is the only picture I could find. They also did one where he put it on the table, had Hailee lay down on it so he could trace her and then they drew her face, hair and clothes on it. She had that one hanging on the back of the door in her room for awhile and this one's hanging in our garage.
Plate faces. I don't know where he comes up with these ideas. So fun.
Sand paintings.
They did a lot of playing outside, even in the snow.
He also introduced the kids to the wonderful world of Lego's. He went and bought a couple sets and Hailee loves to play with them! She even put together that house and car all by herself. Can you believe I've never played with Lego's before? I'm sure my brothers had them, but I think they just weren't my "thing" when I was little. Well, we've spent plenty of hours building things with lego's over the past few months.
He even made sure to keep the kids clean.
He took them for rides in the wagon. One day, he even hooked the wagon up to his scooter and rode them around the block.
He played outside with them when the weather was warm(er).
He took them to the park.
This is only a handful of the fun things they did together. What a great opportunity for our kids to get to spend some one on one time with their dad. I just wanted to thank Ty for all that he did during this time and for staying positive and taking such great care of our kids. I love you so much babe!

Cake Class

2010-02-23T21:44:00.009-07:00

I realize I don't have a talent in this area, which is why I took a cake decorating class. My mom signed us up and we had a lot of fun. So I know these aren't great, but here are a few that I've done. I did learn some good tips, although I need to keep working on my techniques.

Here's the cake I made after our first class with the elements we learned that day. This was for my mom's birthday. I thought this would've looked better with some different colors, so I went and bought new food coloring after I made this one. Who knew there were other food colors besides the little box of four you buy at the grocery store? Not me!
Here's my Valentine's day cake. Not great, but I was excited about how I got it shaped like that. I poured half the cake batter in a 9" square pan and half the batter in a 9" circle pan. Then I laid the square cake on my board like a diamond, cut the circle one in half and added it to the top two edges of the square cake. Like this...
I liked how these turned out. These are my cute little superbowl cupcakes.
And here's the cake I made on my last day of class. I even made all those roses myself! I think I made about 50 of them and then chose the best seven for the cake! It turned out pretty good though.
My mom & I had a lot of fun taking the class together. On to course 2!

Fly or Drive?

2010-02-23T21:19:00.002-07:00

We were thinking of going on a little trip to AZ in a few weeks and I had mentioned to Hailee that we might get to go fly in an airplane. She was pretty excited. Then I looked up the prices! Ouch! I called my sister-in-law to get the scoop on how it would be to travel 12 hours with two little ones. After I got off the phone with her, I had a pretty funny conversation with Hailee:

Me: Well Hailee, it looks like we're probably gonna drive to AZ.
Hailee: Nooooo, I don't want to drive!
Me: Why not?
Hailee: Because airplanes are really, really fast and cars are really, really slow.
Me: I know, but it costs a lot of money to go in an airplane.
Hailee: But mom, you HAVE a LOT of money!
Me: I do?
Hailee (with a very contemplative look): Well........(pause/thinking)..........I HOPE so!
Me: Well, it will be fun, we can stop every few hours at the gas station to get treats and use the potty.
Hailee: But mom, I like to go potty on airplanes!
Can't argue with her on that one, airplane bathrooms are quite a novelty, aren't they!? Love that little girl!

Hailee's Dance & Tumbling Class

2010-02-20T16:11:00.004-07:00

We just put Hailee in a dance and tumbling class in January. This class is perfect for little kids. They do 30 minutes of dance and then 30 minutes of tumbling so they get a little change of scenery. Also, who knows what they're good at yet? I love that she's learning a little bit of both right now and we can watch and see what she's good at and she can figure out which one she likes best. Then we'll know what to put her in when she's older. I think one of her favorite parts about taking a dance class was going to the store and picking out some dance clothes and ballet shoes! Here are a few pictures of her on her first day. Look at that form! I was so impressed, she did really well for her very first time!

My Favorite Things!

2010-02-15T14:30:00.018-07:00

I know I've been on a blogging hiatus for awhile, maybe I can get back into the groove, but I'm not making any promises! Anyway, obviously I'm not a paid advertiser, but I had to share some of my favorite things with everyone because they are making me so happy! It's the little things that count, right?! These are in no particular order, but if you haven't experienced these products, you just have to and you will see what I mean. You can click on any of these titles to go to their sites.

These are the best curlers for hair I've ever seen. They make a perfect curl every time, they are easy to put in and take out, they aren't heated so no hair damage and they don't leave the weird bent ends that most curlers do. I haven't tried them in my hair yet, but I just love what they do to Hailee's hair. You can get them at Sally's Beauty Supply or on their website. They cost a pretty penny, but they are worth it. Here are some pics.

Here's what they look like when you put them in. You do it while her hair is wet and then take them out when it's dry. The orange curlers go one way and the pink ones go the other. I found that out when I used them for the first time and Hailee requested I use all pink and when I took them out, I realized all the curls were going the same direction.
Here's what they look like when you take them out, although they usually look better. They hadn't dried completely on this day, but I had to take them out so they didn't turn out great. Also, I have no idea why I took this picture in front of a window, so sorry...but you get the idea.

Ok, so my kids rooms could not be cuter! They were already cute to begin with and then I discovered these little babies at a mall kiosk during the holidays. They're very inexpensive and have darling artwork. You can put them on any hard surface and peel them off just as easily. Every time I go into Hailee's room, she has them moved around to different locations. Here are the two I bought for my kids (they're not just for kids though, they have lots of different kinds).

Pixos/Chixos!

This is the coolest kids toy I've ever seen, hands down. You take these little plastic balls and put them into whatever kind of design you want and spray them with water. The water fuses them together permanently. I've had some serious fun with these things, oh ya, and Hailee has too:).

So then, they combined these with another idea. They made plastic dolls out of the same stuff so you decide what shoes, pants, shirt and head the chixo has and fuse them together with the water. THEN, (you think it can't get any more exciting, huh?)...they have a little Chixo house and furniture and you can use all the pixos to design everything for the house. Oh my gosh, this has been so much fun. This is the one I bought for Hailee. We have made rugs, bedspreads, couch cushions, a saucepan for the kitchen along with a cutting board, cutting knife, cheese, orange, & carrot, we even made a toilet seat cushion. How fun is that? Love it!This next one totally geeks me out, I know. I discovered this book when I was nursing Hailee a long time ago at Ty's aunts house. She would take so long and I was desperate for something to help my boredom. I grabbed this book off the shelf and immediately fell in love. I came home that night and ordered it from Amazon. It was first published in 1988. This woman is a GENIUS! I have used many of her ideas and there are a ton more that I want to use! I swear, everything you've ever seen on any crafty, creative, homemaking blog has already been thought of by this woman!
Here are a few of my favorite ideas from her book:
1. Mix food coloring and milk and let your kids use new paintbrushes to "paint" on their toast!
2. Make a playhouse for your kids by sewing a cover to hang over the top of a square card table. The one in her book has a little door to go in and out and little applique flowers at the base. It's so cute!
3. Breakfast in a muffin tin. She fills 6 of the muffin slots with muffin mix (those jiffy boxes only make enough for 6, so it's perfect). She fills the other 6 with a deli slice of ham pushed down into the tin to form a cup and breaks an egg into it. You can bake them all together!
4. Create a traveling kit for the kids for long road trips by using an travel hygiene bag and hanging it over the back of the seat in front of them. Then you fill it with activities such as games, cameras, coloring books, and whatever your kids like and travel supplies like wipes, first aid kit, garbage bags, snacks, etc. I want to go on a road trip just so I can use that idea.
5. When camping, create a "dressing room" by flipping an umbrella upside down and hanging a shower curtain around it.
There's lots more. Seriously, if any of this interests you, it's worth going to Amazon and paying the $5 for a used copy.

This girl makes and sells bows for kids hair. I'm not trying to help out a friend, I don't know this person. She just runs a great business and I wanted to make sure everyone knew about it. First of all, her bows are really well made. All the bows I've ever bought from her are still intact, which is more than I can say for most bows I've gotten for Hailee. Second, each time I've ordered from her, the package arrives on my doorstep within a week. Third, she has bows in any style or color and if she doesn't have what you want, you just email her and she'll make it. Lastly, you cannot believe her prices. I cannot believe her prices. Almost ridiculous. Every time I buy from her, I end up buying 20-30 bows because she charges so little for them that I just have to have every kind! Here are some of the styles she has. I especially love the tiny clips for baby hair. Can you believe all of these bows are either $1 or $2 each?? I know, neither can I. This is why I have her button on my sidebar too, so if you ever forget the URL, you can get to her website from there.

So there you go. My favorite things! I hope you'll enjoy as much as I do. If you have any favorites, leave them in the comments so I can know about them too!

Hailee's Birthday #2

2010-01-13T15:46:00.007-07:00

This year Hailee got to have her very first friend birthday party! She was so excited (and confused). She was disappointed when none of her friends showed up for her first birthday party and I tried to explain that she was having a family party and a friend party separately. I thought she got it, but when the day of her friend party came and I told her today was the day, she got really excited and questioned "I'm five?!?" Nope, still four honey, just celebrating a few times!!

She was so excited when her friends started showing up. Even some of her friends from her school came. She's been going to school with them since she was 3 months old, but they never really get to see each other outside of that environment, so she thought it was so cool that they were coming to her house!

For the first activity, they made little hats and door hangers and put jewels and other decorations all over them. Unfortunately Hailee somehow ended up with a big shot of glitter in her eye and I spent about 15 minutes in the bathroom with her trying to get it out. There was so much in there, I really thought it was cutting up her cornea and she'd have to wear a patch over her eye for who knows how long, but after I got it all out, she had no complaints, so I guess it was fine. I guess it's good it was her and not someone else's kid! I was also very lucky to have a few adult helpers there with me! This whole party seriously would've been impossible without them!
Musical chairs...classic four-year-old party game, right? This time, she understood the rules and was ok when she didn't end up with a chair.
Her friends were so thoughtful and generous with the gifts and she absolutely loved everything she was given. She even remembers who gave her what and talks about them when she plays with each thing. Look how cute all of her little friends are.
Here's the whole group. From left to right...Hailee, Kylee, Camryn, Ally, Jerzi, Bella, Sammy, Addy & Breque.
Then they decorated cookies that were cut into various princess shapes. Fun and delicious!
This was one of the cutest activities. They went on a treasure hunt around the house. I posted pictures in each area of the next area they were supposed to go to. It was so funny to watch all 9 of them running all around the house together in a little bunch!
This picture's great. This is the end of the line and the treasures were hidden under the table. They all got a little bag full of candy, toys and jewelry.
This time I used a store-bought cake. Whew. Much easier considering her first birthday party cake incident. The kids didn't seem to mind.
Looks like she's concentrating really hard on her wish.
Well, this ended up being so much fun for her. She's still talking about it! Hopefully all of her friends had a great time too. A party with a bunch of 4-year-old's is seriously one of the cutest things I've ever seen!

Primary Chorister

2010-01-05T19:36:00.002-07:00

My mom was recently called to be the primary chorister in her ward and absolutely loves it! She has always been so very creative and is one of those people that does everything 110%. Two traits I wish I had gotten from her, but didn't. Anyway, she decided to start a new blog to share her ideas with other people with the same calling (although some of these ideas could even be used for different callings). Just go check it out and you'll see what I mean by 110%. You cannot believe the effort she puts into things. I'm sure the kids (and their parents) are very happy to have her in this calling! Here's the link to her site: Music For Primary.

The Plant Whisperer

2010-01-05T19:25:00.003-07:00

Ok, this is amazing. My brother has always had a fascination with plants and can literally tell you what any plant is anywhere. He decided to enter a contest a year ago where you have to guess what the 25 top selling plants will be at this company throughout the year. There are thousands of plants to choose from. Well, he won! And they gave him $250 to spend on any plants he wants (which is great since his wife forbade him to spend any money on plants this year...I can't blame her, they're just getting a new dental practice up and running). Anyway, way to go brother! I love when people really have a passion for something, whatever it may be. Go check out the site where his name will be prominently listed on their page for all of 2010.
Plant Delights Nursery, Inc.

Hailee's Birthday #1

2009-12-28T22:21:00.006-07:00

We have birthday "week" at our house. There are just too many people that love our kids! For Hailee's family birthday party, she wanted to have a Snow White party. I'm not sure why she's been so into her lately, but she just loves everything Snow White. Disney doesn't really do individual princesses, so I couldn't find anything with just Snow White. I decided to just do a red, yellow and blue theme. With everything in those colors, Hailee thought it was a perfect Snow White party!
I attempted another cake for her (which enhanced the theme), although it was unfortunately inedible. I attempted my first cake for my kids for Jake's party and you can see that one here. That one worked out very well! Hailee's did not. You think I'm kidding, I'm not. I actually had to go buy a cake from the store for everyone to eat. I'll post more about that disaster on my food blog (a post about what not to do). It looks pretty though and I think that's all that mattered to Hailee anyway.
I had Ty driving all over Utah that day to try to find seven little dwarves to put on top of the seven little cupcakes, but he was unsuccessful. Seriously, you'd think that wouldn't be hard to find, but it's always more difficult to find something when you actually need it. So, he came up with a solution that Hailee found perfectly acceptable. I thought it turned out pretty cute.
Playing some fun games. She looks like she's having fun, right? Well, she was until we played musical chairs (which she had never played before). She didn't get a chair on round 1 and had a major meltdown right there. When I went in her room to talk to her, she was beside herself...(between sobs, you know the kind) "there...weren't...any...chairs...left...". So, lesson learned for mom...make sure you explain how the game works to the kid before you submit them to it.
All the guests hanging out at the party.
Opening presents. This part of the evening did not go so well. I think with all the chaos and all the people, she was just completely overloaded. She was terrible during the gift giving, throwing money on the floor "I don't like money", "I don't want clothes". I almost took the rest of the presents away, but everyone wanted her to open the present they brought. It was another learning experience for both mom and Hailee after that one. Luckily she hasn't acted like that since while receiving presents. I've told this awful story to several people after the incident and was repeatedly assured that all kids do that at some point. Why does it make us feel better to know that other people's kids sometimes act like brats too? Maybe then because it means it's not our fault, it's just that they're kids? We can tell ourselves that anyway. I still find myself cringing every time she opens a gift now, but she's been pretty good ever since.
She found a very efficient method of opening presents wrapped in bags. Oy...After the party, she decided to move all the balloons to her room, where they remained throughout the week. Reminds me of last year, except all the balloons moved from the party into the bathroom so we could begin our "potty party" (which I think lasted a few months??).
Happy Birthday sweet Hailee. I love you very much!

Like Mom, Like Kids

2009-12-28T22:07:00.004-07:00

Me and the kids...watchin' a movie, eatin' some popcorn. Nothin' better.

Fun Fall Hike

2009-12-28T22:05:00.000-07:00

Just wanted to post some cute pictures of my little family out on a hike in the beautiful fall weather (yes, it was awhile ago).

And I just had to show this cute picture of baby Jake blocking the sun from his eyes. I love it!

Snow White & A Pirate

2009-12-20T21:19:00.003-07:00

I never did get around to posting about Halloween this year. We had a lot of fun all through the month of October, but there are just too many pictures for me to sort through and it was too overwhelming. Because of that, I've gotten behind on posting. So, I'm going to break all the "rules" and just skip it! (On a side note, I actually went to a seminar where I learned I set too many rules for myself anyway, that I could never live up to all of them. So, why do I make the rules for myself that I have to do my blog in a certain way? I don't. So I'm letting go and moving on). However, for documentation purposes, here are some pictures of my cute little babies in their costumes.

Les Miserables

2009-12-04T21:32:00.005-07:00

One day I got an inkling to put in a little Les Miserables. I hadn't listened to it in so long and I was sick of all my music. I listen to all my music in the car, so of course the kids are at the mercy of whatever I select (don't worry, I listen to my fair share of The Wiggles and Strawberry Shortcake). It was fun to remember the story as I listened to each song and appreciate how incredible the music is in tune and in telling the story. Apparently Hailee noticed that the music was telling a story, so she started to ask me questions about it. We spent several days to and from school playing each song and having a question and answer session throughout. I couldn't believe how many questions she came up with. She just absorbed the story! For those of you who know it, this post will be a lot more meaningful...She would tell me how nice the bishop was to give "val jean val jean" (as she calls him), the silver so he wouldn't have to go back to jail. She'd tell me how sad it was when Fantine died because now Cosette won't have a mom, but how good it was that "val jean val jean" decided to be "good" and take her with him. She'd ask about Cosette and why the "hotel owners" were mean to her. She'd say how mean it was that Javert "the policeman" kept trying to put "val jean val jean" back in jail. She just loved to ask every question she could about the story and continuously requested we listen to the music.

Soon, she started to ask what the characters looked like (she probably thinks they are real people). I started to pull up video's on you tube, so she could see little Cosette singing and Fantine when she was sick in her bed. She loved to see what they looked like. After weeks of all this with her so interested, I thought it would be really fun to actually take her to the play. I told her that I would take her sometime. Of course, I didn't think I should take my 3-year old to a broadway musical, so I wondered what other options I had. When she asked me when I was going to take her to the play one day, I thought I'd just check and see online if there was anything, anywhere coming up. Lo and behold, Taylorsville High School was putting on the play that very night and over the next few days! Can you believe that?! Tickets were $8 each!

I must say that I absolutely love Hailee at the age she is right now! She is old enough and well-behaved enough that Ty and I frequently take her out on one-on-one date nights trading off. She does so good in that kind of setting with us and it's nice for her to get our undivided attention, since Jake absorbs a lot of it at home. We can take her to movies, plays, bowling, golfing, anything and she just eats it all up.

So, here we are on October 23rd ready to leave for our special play.
I even did her hair into an out of the ordinary 'do, so she'd feel special.
Taylorsville High School did an excellent job on this play! I thought it was perfect. They had some amazing talent and didn't spare much expense with the props and backdrops.I couldn't even get Hailee to take her eyes off the stage long enough to get a picture and the play hadn't even started yet!
I wish everyone could've been there to hear her commentary throughout the play first-hand. She was cracking me up and I could not believe some of the things she noticed about the story. I came home and immediately wrote down everything she said because I wanted to remember it forever. I wish you could hear the inflections and drawls in these comments, but hopefully you can imagine. Here are my favorites.

Javert came to arrest Jean Val Jean after Fantine died. “Oooh, that’s not very nice”

When little Cosette was sent outside, Hailee asked what she was doing. I told her she went out to the well to get water. She asked, "did she bring a cup?"

She asked why Fantine cut off her hair and I told her she sold it to get money so she could buy food for Cosette. She said, "Oooh, that's sooo nice".

During the second part of the play, they started to sing "Look Down" again. Hailee said in a very irritated tone, "why are they singing that song again?!" She likes the song, but couldn't understand why they'd sing it twice. Funny thing is, I never even noticed until she pointed it out.

When Marias was singing "Empty Chairs at Empty Tables", she asked why he was so sad. I said "because all of his friends died". She watched for a bit more and then asked, "Mom, is Cosette Marias's friend?" "Yes" "Well then...all of his friends didn't die!" Wow, what a smart little girl.

She did a great job and made it through the whole thing. She didn't take her eyes off the stage for the entire first half, but after intermission she got a little antsy with all the war stuff, but I was impressed with how well she did.

And...it was past her bedtime.

I love my sweet little Hailee and was so glad I got to share this special night with her and share something that was such an important part of my childhood.

CityScape Media

2009-11-18T20:55:00.003-07:00

My little brother has started his own photography business and he really does a great job! He is very talented. Since he is new though, and just trying to gain some more clients, he is pretty much giving away his services! Right now he is offering a deal for $25 for a photo shoot and will provide the cd with all your edited photos. He offers printing services as well. Go to his website, CityScape Media, to check out many of the pictures he has taken and fill out the form at the bottom to sign up for your session. You can't get a better deal than that!

Black Island Farms

2009-11-17T21:59:00.004-07:00

We went to Black Island Farms a couple times this year. It's always a lot of fun.

Thriller

2009-11-15T13:21:00.003-07:00

I had such a fun girls night out with my friends last month! We went and saw Thriller. It was so great! It's basically a type of a ballet, but it's scary and they do one skit after another. I loved it. These girls are the best. We have so much fun together and we've all been friends for 15-20 years, crazy! A couple of our friends were missing this night, but we were thinking about you! Thanks guys for a great girls night out, I hope we make this one a tradition.
Ok, so this Zombie isn't one of our friends, but she was nice enough to pose with us for the picture!

Happy Birthday Hailee!

2009-11-15T07:20:00.003-07:00

I can't believe my sweet Hailee is 4-years old! She is the light of our house. She has such a fun little personality, we are always laughing! She is at a really fun age, it's like she is a little adult (at least she thinks she is). She sure has a mind of her own. Her favorite things right now are doing projects like painting & coloring. She likes doing puzzles and playing games. She is loving preschool this year. She is doing great with learning her letters and how to write. She can write her name and some other random letters and she recognizes most letters. She's still really into the princesses (what 4-year old isn't, right?), loves riding her bike and being outside. She loves her little brother so much and tries to hug and kiss him all the time (much to his dismay, usually). He's starting to get to a point where they can play together a little bit though, so that is nice and Hailee loves to make him laugh. Sometimes she can really get him belly laughing! We had some birthday parties this week, so more pictures to come! I love you my sweet little Hailee.

Enchanting Little Witches

2009-10-26T12:55:00.006-06:00

I posted these on facebook already, so sorry for the repeat, but I had to get these on my blog too. Hailee was invited to do a photo shoot for Halloween with her cute little friend, Sammy. The photographer is D&T Photo and you can view their blog here. They did such a great job. I can't say I've ever seen such cute little witches! Happy Halloween!

Jake's 1st Birthday!

2009-10-20T20:46:00.000-06:00

Jake had a great birthday party! I can't believe my little baby is one! He had a pirate birthday party (of course, what else?). Here is the cake I made, I was so proud of myself as this is the first birthday cake I've ever made for my kids and I thought it turned out pretty good! You can read all about it and how to make it on my cooking blog here.

Here's Hailee & Jake ready and waiting to eat!
Jake did a great job with the pinata. He swung that bat like a pro. I may have a little "sportie" on my hands!

This is one spoiled kid! Look at all this fun stuff he got. I think he is just very loved.
Cake Time!
We started him off small...
Then decided to just let him go for it, he is one after all...
And I think he won the messiest kid of all time contest!
But we got him cleaned up. Here are all the grandkids on the Gibson side (well, at least the ones that live in Utah).
Hailee hammin' it up!And new toys for both kids to play with!
We had a great time! Thanks to everyone who came and participated, we loved having all of you there! Jake is a lucky little guy to have so many people who love him!

Bear Lake Friend Trip

2009-10-17T11:01:00.005-06:00

At the end of August, I went up to Bear Lake with my friends. These pictures will look familiar to all of them since I forgot my camera, so I had to steal the pictures from their blogs (thanks guys)! We had a great time. It was just a nice relaxing trip. There were a TON of people in one house, but amazingly, it worked out really well! All the kids got along great and the adults just hung out and chatted.

The first night, some of us met at Bear Lake Pizza. This was quite an experience! We quickly realized we were completely outnumbered by children in a big way! You can see in this picture, there are 4 adults and 11 kids! At the cabin, we had 8 adults and 14 kids altogether, crazy!
I love this picture. Every one of us has a baby on our lap! And they're all boys! It wasn't even staged. From left to right, there's Sherice, Sunnee, Me, Jamie and Erica.Ty was a good sport to pull the kids around all over the lake:)
Here are some of them hanging out in the loft and ya, that's Hailee tipping over (or being pushed over), but all in good fun, of course. She looks like she's having fun, right?
Erica brought some crafts for them to paint.
It was a fun time and just nice to hang out and talk with my friends. Thanks guys, we should do it more often!

The Last of our Trip

2009-10-07T21:25:00.001-06:00

Here's the last of our trip. We went to Sea World and it was a lot of fun. I hadn't been there since I was a kid.
There was a lot of sitting in the hot sun watching shows, but for a 3-year old, I think Hailee did pretty good. For someone who hates to be hot, I think I did pretty good. :)
There were a few areas you could put your hands in the water and touch the fish. Hailee was NOT having that!
I'm still trying to get her to put her hand in the water to touch the sting rays. Nope!
Look at her face, she is truly disgusted!
There was an awesome playground area.
And even some rides...
Since I never got a group shot of all of us together, here's some individual pictures of the whole crew. It was [me, Ty & Hailee (Jake stayed home with Grandma and Grandpa and had a little vacation of his own)], [Blake, Kaleena, Addy & Arya], [Bryce and Jen], and [my mom & dad].

On our way back home, the coolest thing happened. As we were boarding the plane, the pilot was standing there to greet everyone and just as we were walking by, he stopped Hailee and asked if she wanted to come see the cockpit! They brought her in there and she got to sit in the pilot's chair and pull on the steering wheel (or whatever it's called in a plane). The pilot asked Hailee if she wanted to fly the plane back to Utah and she got this scared look on her face and whispered in my ear that she didn't know how. It was so cute. I told her he was just teasing, so she laughed, but I think she still wasn't too sure. They even gave her a little candy. It was really cool to be able to do that.
We had a great trip and loved spending some time with our family!

Downsizing

2009-09-29T20:36:00.002-06:00

The time has come and the dwindling economy has finally hit home in a significant way. As of last week my company, CRSA, began another round of downsizing, and I was not fortunate enough to make the cut this time. It's been a difficult couple of years for the Architecture industry and things aren't improving very much, if at all.
So currently I am playing "Mr Mom" with Hailee and Jake and searching for a job. That's where you come in. If anyone out there knows of any job opportunities please let me know. I have included my Resume here, click to download or view and please spread it around to anyone you think might be interested in hiring me.
Those who know me are familiar with many of my skills and abilities, see my resume for more detailed information.
I am not interested only in the field of Architecture, I am willing to branch out and try something new or something I might be good at. Teaching, Graphic Design or any type of Computer Work are among the things I know I would be good at.
Thanks to everyone, especially Brooke's and My Families, for all your support and help during this difficult time. Thanks to anyone who takes the time to read this and thinks of me the next time you hear of a job opening.
Ty

Disneyland & California Adventures

2009-09-23T11:10:00.019-06:00

Disneyland and California Adventures were so much fun. The girls absolutely loved it! On our way to the park...
I think the highlight was a special lunch we had in Ariel's Grotto. All the princesses come out and visit your table while you're eating.
When Sleeping Beauty came over to our table, we tried to gather up the kids around her to take a picture. Hailee ran off in the opposite direction. I couldn't possibly figure out why she'd be running away from one of the princesses she's been dying to meet ever since I told her about this special lunch. Running after her, I found she went to get the paper crown they gave to us at the table so she could wear it and look just like Sleeping Beauty in the picture.
Look at them smother Cinderella.
Check out how Hailee is so enamored with her.
Snow White was my favorite. She was so cute with the kids. Now Hailee wants to be Snow White for Halloween.The food was so fancy, I had to take pictures. Being in Ariel's Grotto, the theme was "sea" food. How cute is this idea? Hailee got Shells and Cheese with Goldfish Crackers sprinkled on top.
Mine was a fancy, schmancy and delicious seafood soup.
That big seashell is made out of white chocolate! Delicious.
We did actually go on some rides and stuff too. Here are Hailee and Addy making wishes into Snow White's wishing well.
Judging by the look on her face, Disneyland truly must be "the happiest place on earth"!
"It's A Small World" was my favorite. They have totally redone everything in there and it is awesome. As much as I wanted it to be Hailee's favorite too, she insisted that her favorite was "Pirates of the Carribean". Whatever.
I think we wore them out, but what a great time!

Hermosa Beach

2009-09-20T20:43:00.014-06:00

I'm way behind on posting, but I'll try to catch up here in the next week or so. We had such a great time in California! I've had a hard time trying to narrow down these pictures, but seriously, this is the best I could do. I'm going to have to do it in a series of posts too, because there are just too many!

Our first night there, we just spent some time playing on the pier.Pure child happiness, is there anything better?The next day we spent some relaxing time on the beach. As you can see in her expressions, Hailee absolutely loved it!Hailee and her cousins Addy & Arya.
They loved being buried in the sand!
As you can see in my expressions, I absolutely love body surfing!Here's a fun little turn of events that Bryce caught on camera. Here is my body pretty much twisted into a pretzel.
Here's Ty witnessing the crash. His expression says it all.
And the aftermath...Ouch!

I'm One!

2009-09-05T19:48:00.005-06:00

I turned one on September 2nd! I can't believe I'm so big and that I've already been around for a whole year! Here's me on my birthday (sorry about the quality, my dad took the picture with his phone). Here's what the doctor says about me:

Weight: 19 lbs. 4 oz. (Darn, I can't turn around in the carseat yet?!) - 5th percentile
Height: 28.7 in. - 25th percentile

I am crawling around all over the place. I love to eat! I don't really have any favorite foods yet. It's pretty much whatever anyone has that I don't. I don't cry much, but I scream really loud when I'm in my highchair and there's no food on my plate yet. My parents are starting to learn that the food needs to be there before they put me in the chair. I sleep really well, I take two naps a day of about 2 hours each and I sleep from 7 PM to 8 AM (unless my parents have to wake me up earlier than that to go to school). I can say a few words. My first word was "ball" because I love them, they are my favorite toy. I also know bottle (but I say it like "baba"), book, bye (and I can wave), mama and dada. I can also point to things and clap. I'm having so much fun being a baby and I'm so glad that so many people love me. I am a lucky little guy.

Happy Birthday to Me!

2009-08-10T19:18:00.000-06:00

Check out what my sweet husband got me for my birthday!

St. George

2009-07-22T07:59:00.008-06:00

I've been wanting to take Hailee down to the Tuachan Theatre in St. George and when I saw that Annie was playing, I decided to go. We had such a great time. Ty & Jake were there too, but for this event, Jake was in bed and Ty wasn't too disappointed in having to miss the play:)

She had fun playing around before the show. The grounds are so beautiful.

You can see how excited she was when the play began.

This is when they shot off a firework at the end of the show.
She stayed awake the whole time. She did really well although she got a little restless when there were no kids on the stage. She kept asking where they were.

I was in the other room when this incident occurred. I walked by and Hailee was trying to give Jake an oreo cookie. I told her not to give him one because it's too messy. When I walked back into the living room, this is what I saw! If you can't tell, she "unscrewed" the oreo cookie and stuck it to the top of Jake's head with the creme filling! Me and Ty thought we probably should be mad, but we couldn't help laughing our heads off! Besides, Jake doesn't seem to mind:)We all went shopping one morning when Ty and my dad were going mountain biking and they had this cute little sign up. I thought Jake was a perfect "Daddy Warbucks".We went for a little hike one morning. We had a great time, it was a nice little weekend getaway.

Happy Father's Day

2009-07-22T07:57:00.003-06:00

For the past couple of years, we have had a little backyard BBQ and water party the day before father's day to celebrate with our own dads. It's June, so the weather's always nice and it's always really fun. So we decided to do it again this year. Well, the weather didn't cooperate so well for us. It was raining all morning, but we decided to fill up the pool just in case it would warm up later. So everyone came and no such luck. I checked the thermometer that we have outside and it read 52 degrees. The sporadic rain continued. Well, that wasn't stopping the kids. They were planning on a swimming party and they were going to have it. I'm not kidding you, I put my jacket and shoes on to go outside because it was so cold. These pictures are deceiving because you can tell the sun is out, but it was literally shining for the 2 minutes I was out there getting these pictures before it went back behind the dark rain clouds. Crazy kids!

On father's day, of course we had to start the day out with breakfast in bed for dad. Apparently this is the first "breakfast in bed" he's ever had. Wow, what kind of a wife am I? He loved it, even though Hailee kept begging him to give her bites. We did go eat our own breakfast in the kitchen after he was done.

All he got from us was some zebracakes (nasty things, he only gets them on special occasions) and a subscription to Entertainment Weekly. But that's because he got his real present at the end of June, a mountain bike. He just HAD to have it before we went on our trip to St. George.

Happy Father's Day! You are the best dad and husband in the whole world. We love you!

Princess Party Part II

2009-07-22T07:56:00.003-06:00

Here is the second part of the princess party I posted about here. My mom put on this awesome party for Hailee and Addy. Here they are playing "pin the crown on the princess".

This was a funny game. We wrapped up their legs with green crepe paper like they were mermaids and they did hopping races.

My mom always makes the coolest cakes. Here is a picture I took after the kids got to it, hence the leaning tower!

This lunch was awesome. The sandwiches were cut out in shapes like crowns, glass slippers, princesses, etc. It even got some of the more apprehensive eaters to dig right in. We also had yummy little fruit kabobs.

Here's my mom explaining about magic pixie dust.

All the girls.

Thanks to my mom for putting so much time and effort into the party, it turned out so well and everyone had a great time!

Father's Day Fishing Trip

2009-07-05T13:16:00.003-06:00

Every year Hailee's preschool goes on a Father's Day Fishing trip to the trout farm. Since this is her first year of preschool, this is the first year they got to go. They had such a great time. Unfortunately Ty was behind the camera the whole time, so he isn't in any of these pictures.
Hailee was apparently extremely afraid of the fish and it was all Ty could do to even get her to hold this pole for a picture! She got a little more brave throughout the day.
So the first time a fish bit Hailee's hook, she didn't know what to do. Ty was video taping her when it happened so he was trying to turn it off and slip it into his pocket so he could help her (I only wish he had just kept videotaping!). Before he could make it over to her, she just let go of the pole, and down in went. In this picture, you can see the pole "swimming around", still attached to the poor fish. It's in the middle of the picture almost halfway down.
Of course the bus ride is always a favorite!
They ended up catching two fish to bring home. Such a fun little activity.

Pretty, Pretty Princesses

2009-06-21T21:56:00.000-06:00

When my niece, Addy, came into town from Arizona, my mom thought it would be fun to have a princess party for her and Hailee. Not a birthday or anything, just a party for fun (yes they are extremely spoiled). You should've seen this production. WOW! We had a few other girls over and they all had so much fun.

First on the agenda, they all made wands and crowns out of anything you could possibly think of (glitter, feathers, jewels, stickers, etc.).
Here's Hailee working on her wand.
The finished product.
After they were done, she had a "magic mirror" for them to see how beautiful they look with their new wands and crowns. We couldn't get Hailee away from this mirror. Here she is admiring herself (and she was not posing for the picture, this is just what she was doing).Then they all came and sat on a blanket while she told them the story of the Princess and the Pea. They were all supposed to close their eyes for a part of it. Here's Hailee and Addy (her friend, not her cousin).
Here's Addy (her cousin), Abby (another cousin) and Maren. I love this picture because Maren is the one in the back and when asked to close her eyes, she turned around and buried her face into the pillow. It was so cute.Unfortunately, the battery in my camera died after this and I didn't get any more pictures with my camera. I took some on my mom's camera, so I will post a Part II later. Anyway, it was so cute and they all had so much fun. Thanks Mom, you're the best!

I'm Bringing Home A Baby Dinosaur!

2009-05-26T21:02:00.004-06:00

To the tune of the bumble bee song, "I'm bringing home a baby dinosaur, won't my mommy fall right on the floor..." Hailee's been singing that all week. This week at her school was dinosaur week. They learned all about dinosaurs and with that came her VERY FIRST field trip! As excited as she was to go to the dinosaur park, I think she was most excited to get to ride the big yellow school bus! I didn't attend the field trip, but I went to see her off, so I got a few pictures of her excitement.
Thought this picture needed an explanation. This is when she realized I wasn't standing behind her anymore, but I still thought she looked so cute getting on the bus.

Mother's Tea

2009-05-26T20:47:00.004-06:00

Hailee wanted to have a Mother's Tea Party this year to honor the mother's (and Grandma's) we love (ok, so what if I gave her the idea?). It was so much fun. Everyone came dressed up, we got out the fancy china and served hot chocolate for the tea, with french vanilla creamer in the sugar bowl and milk in the cream dispenser so the kids could put in all the special fixin's and stir it up. We made yummy tea sandwiches and I attempted petit fours, which did not look good, but they did taste good.
This is Hailee, her cousin Abby, and her friend Addy.It was so fun. We wanted to do something special for our mom's/grandma's who do so much for us from providing a listening ear when I need it, to kissing the owee on Hailee's knee, from hosting numerous Sunday get together's, birthday's and special occasions to jumping at the chance to babysit anytime we need because they love being with the kids. We couldn't ask for anyone better! Thank you to my mom's for being the best!

Remember Me?

2009-05-12T15:33:00.003-06:00

I just wanted to post this cute picture of my little baby Jake.

Wait no....that's Hailee!!! Do you think there's any resemblance?