Excitement!

It's sad, but true . . . these pictures really do sum up the excitement at our house lately! I went through all my recent pictures on the camera and this is pretty much it. Let's discuss . . .

Athena has been really excited about helping me in the kitchen with all my cooking. I was on the computer the other day and asked her to boil some water. She took a picture of it when it reached that point and came to show me that it was boiling. :)

I really do love her excitement with cooking lately. It's wonderful to have a partner in the kitchen and to be able to teach her all my secrets!

Next, This picture of Alexandra.

See her awesome soda can insulator? Jeremy has been so ultra absorbed with going to the BYU games and this was his latest treasure to bring home. Can holders for all! Really, the perks are amazing. We now have 6 soda can insulators sitting in the drawer of our downstairs kitchenette.

Other than that, we are patiently (or not so patiently) waiting for this cold weather to leave once and for all so we can enjoy playing outside again.

Saaaaan Diiiiiiii-ego!

We went to visit my sister, Cynthia, for Thanksgiving this year. It was one of those "quick trips" that turned out to be a lot of fun!  We decided to keep everything low budget and found some free things to do in San Diego for a day.

We started out by going to the Mormon Battalion Museum. What a neat find! It was really interesting to learn about the Mormon Battalion and the kids loved it.

The kids immediately had to explore the wagon.

Who knew this was sitting in the middle of San Diego? A pioneer wagon?

Inside, the LDS missionaries did a little presentation about the Mormon Battalion and it was actually quite interesting! I never even really knew what all they did and their amazing contributions to the area. Ethan jumped up at the first chance to volunteer and was more than excited to wear the "gear". I think this was his 3rd time being picked as the volunteer. Funny!

At the end of the tour, the kids got a chance to pan for gold.

As you can see, they all really got into it. :)

So did the parents.

Here is Athena finding her share of the gold.

Everyone made a pretty good haul on the gold. Too bad it wasn't real! I'd go home and pay off the house!!

Each kid was allowed to take home one piece, so they took awhile and picked out their VERY BEST one.

We were inducted into the group of honorary members of the battalion. SWEET!

Our next free activity (after lunch) was to go see the beautiful Coronado hotel and beach. We drove over this huge bridge that goes out to the island and on the way we happened to pass the famed Carnival Splendor ship, the one that was left drifting out in the ocean with all its passengers aboard and no power. It was interesting to see it because when Jeremy and I went on our cruise last year, this is the ship that paralleled our ship all the way down the Mexican Riviera. Only it was working at that time.

This is the hotel we wanted to see. The "Somewhere in Time" hotel. Isn't it beautiful? I got some better shots of it from the back view, this is just our first view of it. It's an amazing building!

After finding a place to park on a very full street, we let the kids loose on the beach. They were happy as can be just to be out of the car! It was pretty cold, but the kids all insisted on taking off their shoes. Oh well.

We got there right at sunset. Isn't it beautiful?

Something she found . . . is it a shell? A rock? I can't tell, but by the look on her face it must be pretty exciting!

I'm not sure what exactly happened, but while we were there, Callie's head just got too heavy for her neck! We tried to help her but there wasn't much we could do.

And Cynthia got stuck holding all the shoes. It was pretty hard on their family.

Here is that great view of the hotel I was telling you about. If we didn't have kids with us I would have gone inside.

With all the sand, and water, and tide pools, and rocks to climb on, and beautiful sunset to look at - Alexandra chose to play right beside this cement wall. Why go to the beach?

Cute sisters!

Another view of Coronado Beach.

Pretty me with pretty hotel. Thanks Jeremy for the photo op!

We left the beach as it was getting dark and drove to the next free spot on our list. The San Diego temple. I have to say, I think this is the prettiest temple of all of them because it looks like a palace.

My eternal children in front of the temple. :) I'm glad I got to show them this temple. It was their first time here.

And this is my eternal family in front of the temple.

We shared our wonderful day in San Diego with Brett, Cynthia, and their children. It was a fun day out - and did I mention it was free? Except for lunch. We don't very often get to come here and we RARELY spend a day with Brett and Cynthia, so that was a real treat for all of us!

Happy Valentine's Day 2011!!

I've started a new tradition in our home because for our 2nd year now, I decided to put together a "fancy" candlelight dinner for the whole family.

I put together an easy menu that I knew the kids would eat, bought some fabric rose petals and candles, and decorated the table all special for everyone. When I called everyone to come and eat they were all so excited! I told them to be careful because there was REAL fire on the table, so all the kids (even Nathan) pulled out their chairs so carefully and sat down all nice.

I wanted to make this a fun dining experience for our kids because they don't get that very often. So, while I finished up work in the kitchen and got all the plates ready to serve, Jeremy sat at the table with the kids and gave them some lessons in etiquette.

It was so cute to watch them all nicely place their napkins in the laps and have nice conversation until their meals arrived.

We had prayer and then I served their plates 2 at a time. Jeremy instructed them not to eat until everyone had been served. Here is Nathan checking out his plate of food.

After everyone had their food, I went around the table and offered ground pepper to those who wanted it. It's amazing what good manners children can have when they try! I heard a lot of "Yes, please", "Thank you", and "No thank you" (said with a polite smile).

Samantha looks quite pleased. :)

Candlelight dinner with camera flash.

Without the flash.

Finally, after serving, offering pepper, and taking pictures, it was finally my turn to sit down and eat. This is what we had - spaghetti with Wacky Mac noodles and cauliflour with Crystal Lite to drink.

The dinner conversation was delightful and we didn't have to break up ANY fights! Imagine that!!!

When everyone was finished eating, I cleared away their dishes and had the kids sit at the table and continue their conversations. Time to move on to dessert! For our Valentine's dessert I homemade a New York Style white chocolate cheesecake and garnished it with fresh strawberries and chocolate chips. WOW! It was so much better than it looks in the picture! Super creamy and rich. A definite success! The kids gobbled it up and they thought it was so neat that they got their dessert right after dinner. Funny. :)

So, I actually did all of that dinner on Sunday - the 13th. Then, on Monday morning (truly Valentine's day) I got up and made these for the kids. My attempt at heart-shaped pancakes. Thankfully the kids aren't too picky about them being perfect and were so excited again.

The past several years I've left a special Valentine's gift for each of the kids either on their bedside table or right outside their doors so they can find it when they wake up. I didn't do that this year because I decided to do it differently. Athena was so disappointed that there was no surprise! I didn't know she looked forward to it so much. She didn't know I already had a plan, so I told her that she would have to wait until after school for her surprise. Then, when I picked up Athena, Samantha, and Nathan from school they found this waiting for them on the kitchen table.

The wonderful thing about Valentine's Day is that you can do everything in the name of "I love you" and your family knows that I gave it to them because I love them. I don't have to pretend like the tooth fairy came by, not Santa, there is no Valentine's bunny. It's just ME doing something for THEM because I love them!

During the day I had to go to the foot doctor because I had a very sudden and extremely painful problem crop up with my right foot over the weekend. My nerve that runs right through my arch and up my ankle was completely inflamed and I could hardly walk on it. The doctor ended up giving me a shot of cortisone right into my nerve and main artery that runs under my arch. Talk about PAIN!!!! I wouldn't recommend that to ANYONE! Anyway . . . so while I was up that way (LOL, "since I'm there") I stopped at the store and picked up some of Jeremy's favorite candy, a Diet DP, and a balloon bouquet for him. Alexandra and I stopped by his office and surprised him with it. :)

Then, he surprised me by coming home with a beautiful gift. HE LOVES ME!!! These beautiful roses and a balloon bouquet for me! :)

I am blessed to have a wonderful family who I can share these experiences with while I am on this earth. Other than the lame shot to the foot (and me having to teach aerobics that night with the feeling of jumping on needles), it turned out to be 2 days of wonderful Valentine LOVE!! :)

I love you kids!

I LOVE YOU, JEREMY!!

Our Beloved Nathan

Isn't Nathan so cute? I love looking at these pictures because they remind me to look at Nathan more as a little personality trying to emerge instead of a little boy who likes to bug his sisters. :) He is such a little clown and has so much energy, but at the same time he is very loving and kind. I enjoy having him in our home.

Nathan turned six on Halloween - October 31, 2010.

His birthday was on a Sunday and followed an extremely busy week/weekend. We invited grandmas and grandpas over to help celebrate his birthday. So, from the time church ended until dinner time I raced like mad to get everything done. First thing on the list - decorate a cake! For the 3rd year in a row, Nathan wanted a pirate ship cake. He picked to have a "Ghost Ship" cake so I got to work and tried my best to fill the order. The Dr. Pepper sitting there is for my sanity. :)

While I worked feverishly, Jeremy took the birthday boy out to play ball.

I watched them from the window for a little while in between decorating the cake and Nathan seemed to be having the time of his life!

I finished the cake in about 2 hours. TA DA!!! This is the finished product.

No sooner had I finished, our guests began to arrive. I hadn't even started on dinner, but I wasn't too worried. For Nathan's birthday dinner request he picked Macaroni 'n Cheese, Beans, and Hot Dogs. Wow! Talk about a heart attack waiting to happen! But, what the birthday boy wants, the birthday boy gets. We all managed to get the dinner down . . . well, all of us except Nathan. He didn't even eat it!

Next: PRESENT TIME! Here is Nathan showing how old he is.

Nathan has been really "into" Star Wars, so I got him this cute little Star Wars Lego set. He opened it and threw it aside. Samantha, however, was very excited about the set. With his permission she quickly opened it and got to work. :)

He also received this unexciting gift of clothing. It does look really cute on him.

Then the good stuff. AIRPLANES!

He also received an aircraft carrier that had more airplanes and accessories - PLUS this super sweet movie! He popped it in and we all enjoyed/endured his new Imaginext movie while he buzzed his airplanes around the room.

I figured I'd better also include a picture of some of the people who came. This was a nicer picture than the 2 pictures I got of both grandpas dozing off and missing most of the party. Looks like a rocking good time, right?

All good things must come to an end. We finished off with the birthday cake. I did a great job on the cake because it would have tasted divine if I liked cake. But those who do like cake said it was tasty and mine wasn't so bad either.

I am pretty sure Nathan had a wonderful 6th birthday and with all of my complaining about noisy boy stuff, I really do love having him in our family. We most certainly wouldn't be the same without him.