Girlfriend Love

Top Row: Jennifer, Jen, Rachel, Laura

Bottom Row: Tricia, Emily, Amanda, Laurie, Me

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Girls Nights...the words just make me happy! It conjures up thoughts of really yummy, bad-for-me food that I eat way to much of, and funny girl talk that I will never tire of. I seriously will be 80 and still having girls nights. There is nothing like a good group of girlfriends! Completely priceless. I'm so glad I was one of those girls in High School that had a really good group of girlfriends and not always (or ever!) had a boyfriend. Girlfriends last forever. This was Amanda's birthday bash at Laurie's house. We had all the aforementioned items: food, girl talk, and even a fun game of Mafia. So here's to all my "Ladies" out there, my current friends, my old friends and my far away friends...I love you all!

Hate doing the pajama routine every night?--TRY THIS!

Okay, so I seriously HATE coercing my kids to wind down at night and get ready for bed. It is like pulling teeth. I feel like I have to say "go get your pajamas on" a million times before they do it. So one night I had this BRILLIANT thought come to me. So here it is:

Tell your kids to run to their rooms and get on their pajamas but not to come out of their rooms until mom has come and guessed what pajamas they chose to wear.

THEY LOVE IT! It sounds so simple, but they love to "trick" me. So I guess, and they come bounding out of their rooms all excited that I guessed wrong. Wyatt (my oldest) even helps Eden, who can't get undressed and dressed by herself, get her pajamas on so she can "trick" me too. Wyatt has gotten so clever that he will put a totally old and small top mismatched with some bottom, just so he can fool me. They love it and I totally play up how tricky they are ( I try to NOT guess correctly). What used to take 15 minutes to do, now takes about 60 seconds, and with no work on my part! It's a WIN WIN!

A Jewel Filled Night

Rachel, me, Rebecca at the end of the show

Amazing Jewel!

So, a few weeks back, I got hooked up with tickets from my friend, Rachel's sister (following me?) to see Jewel's acoustic tour. The concert was only a few minutes from my house...(hallelujah for casinos around the corner..not) Jewel takes me back to my Freshman year at BYU! I haven't been following her whereabouts since then but I thought it would be fun to stroll down memory lane. So we (Rachel, Rebecca (who is a MASSIVE Jewel fan) and me) trotted off to the concert (in snowy weather) for what I thought would be a mediocre concert, since I didn't know much of her new stuff. HOLY COW..was I WRONG! It was truly one of the most, if not THE most amazing concert I have EVER been to (and I have a high bar people! I mean I saw MC Hammer in concert!). The venue only held like 500 people so it was intimate and she played and talked as if it was just a group of friends sitting around. It was just her and her guitar on the stage. She told stories of growing up in Alaska, being homeless for a year, and some of the inspirations behind her songs, and then opened up to questions from the audience at the end of the show. She played for 2 1/2 hours, just her and her guitar. It was truly amazing and I have so much more respect for her and her music now!

Interview with Wyatt

I did this interview as a "tag" on Facebook, but I wanted to have it documented on my blog for journaling purposes as well. This interview could have been a nightmare, but luckily Wyatt gave non-disgracing answers!

1. What is something mom always says to you? "I love you"
2. What makes mom happy? That we have wonderful children
3. What makes mom sad? That we fight sometimes.
4.When does your mom laugh? Twice a day--when we do silly stuff
5. What was your mom like as a child? I thought you had curly hair
6. How old is your mom? 25
7. How tall is your mom? 40 inches
8. What is her favorite thing to do? play with us
9. What does your mom do when you're not around? Sits on the computer doing nothing (sadly true!)
10. If your mom becomes famous, what will it be for? because you win races all the time (I wish!)
11. What is your mom really good at? running
12. What is your mom not very good at? cooking (ouch!)
13. What does your mom do for her job? I don't know because you don't actually work at an office
14. What is your mom's favorite food? noodles (huh?)
15. What makes you proud of your mom? When you give me hugs and kisses
16. If your mom were a cartoon character, who would she be? Princess Pea on "Super Why"
17. What do you and your mom do together? games
18. How are you and your mom the same? We both have brown eyes
19. How are you and your mom different? You have long hair and I have short hair
20. How do you know your mom loves you? helping me clean up "Sweet Streets"
21. What does your mom like most about your dad? He buys you clothes (what?!)
22. Where is your mom's favorite place to go? to see Twilight (wow! EMBARRASSING!)

Amazing Race: Here We Come....or Here we Don't!

So I have wanted to apply with my dad to be on "The Amazing Race" for years now. The only problem was that I kept having babies! Well, that phase of my life is now over and so on to another goal of mine: getting on the Amazing Race! I went online in January to look when they were accepting applications for the show and voila! It had just been posted THAT day! It was meant to be!!! Or not! They say if you make it to the semifinal round then you get a call..haven't recieved one and don't expect to. In hindsight I would have done our application video very different, but hindsight is 20/20 right? Well, since I am a super determined and stubborn person, I'm not accepting "no" for an answer so I've decided to apply with my brother for the next audition they have (you can't apply with the same person twice) and to tell you the truth, the dynamic between my brother and I would make for MUCH better television. Not behavior I'm sure we'll be proud of, but definitely good TV..and a shot at racing around the world.

So here is our application video we submitted!

Cousin Bonding

Ruby and Wyatt hanging in the ice cave at Sea World
Post-Pet show --Wyatt and Cash

Brooke, Cash and Ruby at Sea World

Killing time at the Mall on President's Day--during the downpour

Cash and Wyatt

The great thing about our trip to Disneyland is that we also got to stay with Ben's brother John and his wife Brooke and their kids while we were there. The kids had some much needed cousin time with Cash and Ruby since we usually only get to see them once a year. Besides the hiccup of Alaska Air shipping our bag to Alaska and not California and doing without clothes and toiletries for 24 hours (oh yeah, AND they lost our luggage on the way HOME too...nice!) it was a perfect trip. The kids played so well together, I wish we had had more time to let them play. It was so fun to hang out with John and Brooke as well. So nice to be able to consider family like hanging out with good friends!

Disneyland Perfected!

Mistake: Never go on a soaking ride first in the day!

Kesley and Belle

Main Street fun


We actually didn't go on the Teacups...no loss there for me!

River Boat ride

For Mid-Winter Break this year, we took the two oldest, Wyatt and Kesley, to Southern California to do the "Disneyland" thing. We decided to leave Eden and Talmage home with my mom for the week (thanks to Mara and Sean for that BRILLIANT idea!) because I foresaw cranky-needing nap kids, who wouldn't be able to go on all the rides anyway. So glad I stuck to that! I feel like we took the two kids at the PERFECT age.

So after going to Dland, I now have 3 hard and fast rules:

1. I will always go there in February.

2. I will always go on a Monday, Tuesday or Wednesday

3. I will not take a child under 40 inches

I feel like we did the trip perfectly. It was rainy on the first day we went. It poured for the first hour (long enough of us to invest $30 in ponchos) and then stopped for the rest of the day, which was FABULOUS. It was enough to deter a lot of people from being there and we ended up spending the whole day not waiting in a line longer than about 10 minutes. The kids loved all the grown up rides the best so we tried to avoid as many of the little kid rides as possible. Why suffer on Dumbo when you can enjoy Space Mountain?! Wyatt's favorite ride was Space Mountain and Pirates of the Caribbean and Kesley really loved the Matterhorn. We went from 9 am to 9pm both days and the kids were total troopers to go-go-go all day.

We went to California Adventure on Wednesday for part of the day. We made the HUGE mistake of going on the "wet" ride first and we paid the price. We were SOAKED HEAD TO TOE when we got off and it was not that hot of a day, so we were cold and in wet jeans. Bad idea. Definitely a "last ride of the day" kind of ride.

Anyway, total success and absolute fun! It was strange to only have 2 kids. It's all perspective I guess. When I only had two kids a few years back , it felt so busy and overwhelming and now 2 is a breeze. It's all relative I guess!