The Happenings of the Week

This week has been pretty good. This is what I accomplished off my list. First, Family Home Evening went great, the kids LOVED it. Kyra had the scripture in Primary this week, Genesis 1:23 (I think) and so I thought we would do FHE, about the meaning of her scripture. We talked about how God created the earth. Then I printed off little pictures of the 7 days of creation, and glued them to popscicle sticks. Then when I read what happened on each day, they had to decide which picture represented that day. Kyra INSISTED that she wanted to memorize her scripture as well, so I made this little picture story to help her. That girl has an unreal memory, and had the scripture memorized the next day. She did EXCELLENT, saying her scripture in primary. It was so cute. Here she is after church, telling me her scripture.

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Other things accomplished this week..reading to the kids each day, updating the blog, taking stuff to DI, and #42 we won't talk about, we will just cry about. I was able to keep the front room clean, tried a new recipe (learned how to make mexican rice from scratch!), cleaned out the garage, and we watched one of our movies that was still shrink wrapped (Stranger than Fiction...a great movie, NOTHING like a typical Will Ferrel movie.) I was also able to complete about 35 of the birthday cards for RS. Here are my 4 favorite designsso far. I have about 40 left. I was also able to do really well with my food storage supply the last couple weeks. By using coupons and hitting the sales, I was able to get everything in this picture for $1 and item. Everythign in this picture for FREE! Does anyone need mustard???Then in this picture I was able to get the juice, the shampoo, deoderant, the lotion, and the hand soap for free. Then Fry's was having a great sale on the rest. So it was all together about $200 worth of groceries, but after coupons, and such it was just over $60. Coupon clipping is finally getting to be fun!Lastly we were able to go to the Desert Museum yesterday. It was so much fun!!! We had a coupon, from the Tucson discount book thing, so it cost our entire family about $13 for admission. Last time we went, it was early summer, Kyra was only about 6 months old, and it was not so great. But the weather was BEAUTIFUL, about 70, and they really have so many things for the kiddos to do. It was great. Here are the kiddos in front of the butterfly flowers. They had one section, with huge rocks, in which they dug tunnels through, and then placed glass just on the other side of the tunnel. So you could see the different animals as they made the way through the tunnels. They had this cute little tunnel for the kids to climb through, and they could pretend to be animals. They also had an abandoned mine, with a rock pit outside the door, where the kids could dig through and find treasure (different colored minerals). Kyle LOVED this section. Our favorite animal exhibts were the hummingbirds, and the mountin lion.

Kyra was also brave, and petted a snake!

Grandpa treated everyone to some soft serve ice cream! Yummy. Here is grandpa and Kyra about to dig in. And Kyle in heaven. We had to call and tease Aunt Renna, that we were eating ice cream, in short sleeves, in the shade, because the 70 degree weather was a little warm. (Aunt Renna lives in Wyoming, where it was 9 degrees and was snowing yesterday. I'm sure she will be calling us, and teasing us in August.

One of the coolest things they had for the kiddos was mineral collection. They gave each kid an egg carton, and a map, which showed where different stations were, where they could go and collect a mineral. At each station the kids got a rock, learned about the rock and then were able to do some activity. For instance for 2 of the rocks (I can't remember which ones) they ground the mineral, and mixed it with water, and it created different colored paint, which the kids could then use to paint a picture. At another station, where one of the minerals formed in certain geometri crystal looking shapes, they had pieces of paper with the geometic shapes of the minerals drawn on them, the kids could then color them, cut them out and tape them together into the shape of the mineral. Another exhibit, had the mineral magnetite. And the kids got to use a magnet, and see which one of the minerals stuck to the magnet, and was thus magnitite. Here is Kyle's finished mineral collection.

We really had a great time! I would strongly suggest the Desert Museum, if your kiddos aren't babies any more, and if it isn't summer, because everything it outside, and there is some hiking.

It was a good week! I feel accomplished, and I think it really helped to have my goals visible to me on a daily basis, so I could keep track of the stuff I wanted to get done. This week I really want to organize my photos on my computer. I have a million files, with alot of duplicates, and some are labeled by date, some by theme. Does anyone have any suggestions? Do I seperate them by kid, date, activity? What do you do?

P.S for those who are familar with our ward. Bishop Clark got released today, and Corey Smith was called as the new bishop, with Bro. Allen first counselor, and Bro. Omer, second counseler.

New Year Resolution

Now I do realize that New Years was 18 days ago, but better late than never. A friend has a list on her blog entitled "101 Things to do in 1001 days". I loved the idea, but that was essentially 3 years, and I'm a more of the short term goal type gal. So I thought I would change it to "101 things to do in the next 101 days" Starting today, and going until April 28th, and seeing how many things on my list I could get done. Now some are silly, and easy, other are "Are you kidding me" type goals. IT WAS REALLY HARD THINKING OF 101 THINGS! So I posted as many as I can think of for now. Well here goes nothing!

Christmas '08 Part 1

We had a lot of fun this year. Both kids were old enough to "get it". They loved everything about it...all of the christmas movies, the decorations, the presents, every single thing. Karl had 17 days off, which was fantastic! First my sister came down from Wyoming with her husband and kiddos. Calvin and Kyle were.....wild! Luckly they burned alot of energy on each other. Here they are sucking juice off the table and thinking it is just the funniest thing ever.

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Here they are trying to kill themselves jumping off the couch.

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The kiddos got new PJ's Christmas Eve. They were a big hit. Kyra just kept saying "I'm so happy" every 5 seconds.

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This is our attempt at getting all the kiddos together in their new PJ's.



And of course, cookies for Santa!

Christmas Gifts

So the brillant plan for the Christmas was that I was going to make quite a few of the gifts, to make them more personal, and special. Well, for a craft person this would of been a fabulous plan! In the end it turned out okay, but there were a couple tears shed along the way. I made a calander for Grandma Adams, and Greatgrandma Wagoner of the kids and grandkids. I used digital scrapbook paper to create the backdrops. I know that walmart has a thing where you can just upload a couple photos and they will make the calander for you , but I wanted to be able to add however many photos I wanted. So here is January. Feburary, with cousin Ethan.March was Kyle.April was our family. May was a page just for the girls. June just for the boys. July was a messy baby page.August was for the Leavitt Family (Karl's sister)September was for Kyra. October was for Halloween pictures. (There was a Trick or Treak sign across the top, I'm not sure why its not on this image...ummm.)November was just a cute baby page. And obviously Decmber was Christmas pictures.

It was a fun project, but I'm don't think I'm a digital scrapbooker.

I also made little aprons for each one of the cousins and my kiddos. Kyra was the only one willing to model it.

Kyra got Tinkerbell, Kyle and Calvin got Cars, and Ethan got Batman.

I also made marble magnets with pics of the grandkids, and Etched a couple Pyrex pans with last names.
Although at this exact moment, I will say I won't be making anything homemade next year, but I think making homemade christmas gifts is like childbirth, you forget the pain, sweat and tears that went into it the first time, until it is too late.

Having fun in the leaves!

We went down to Grandma and Grandpa's house just before Christmas, and enjoyed some of the beautiful weather we have been having.

Catching Up...

Yes we are still alive! We are finally starting to get over the brochitis, colds, and double ear infections that we have had the past couple of weeks. We were able to squeeze in some holiday fun. First, thanksgiving. My parents and Karls parents both came. Here is the turkey.Everything turned out really good, and the meal was a success. Whew! I was pretty tired though, so I decided to leave all of the pie making up to my sous chefs. The did a great job! :)The day after thanksgiving we made our way up to Phoenix, for a Suns game (Karl's birthday present). We went to the rainforest cafe for dinner. It was fantastic. The kids just wanted to look around at the resturant the entire time...I didn't have to pull our coloring books, or playdough. This was Kyle's expression most of the time. We also made a stop at the Phoenix Zoo. The highlights were the petting zoo, and this play area for the kiddos based on the Little People Farm. The kids loved, and especially the giant sandbox. We were also able to go down to Sierra Vista, and see the Electric Light Parade. Here are the kiddos cheesing it up before the Parade started.

We also went and enjoyed the Zoo lights at the Reid Park Zoo. It was such a beautiful night, and the kiddos loved to see all the lights, and sit on Santa's lap!

Then of course, the decorating of the tree! The kids are FANTASTIC with the tree. We put a couple specific ornaments toward the bottom, that they can take on and off, and then they leave the rest completely alone. I was AMAZED. The presents are a slightly different story. Kyra carries one around most of the day, and says "Santa said it was okay that I open it early."

Kyra loves every aspect of Christmas. All of the songs, the stories, the Christmas movies, the decorating, the presents, EVERYTHING. She came home from preschool the other day and I asked her what she learned, she said "I learned that Rudolph has a Mommy and a Daddy, and that they were married in the Reindeer temple!" This year is so much fun, both kiddos are so excited and they both kind of "get" Christmas. The best part is that Karl has 17 days off in a row!!! So it will be great to have him home with us. Now if we can all just stay healthy (and if I can get my house clean from 2 weeks of neglect!).