Bowling

Tonight for family home evening we went bowling with the whole clan. While Owen found laying on the hard floor most exciting Ainsley got really into her bowling....
and here's the video to prove it.

She would sit in some random pose and watch her ball creep to the end of the alley after every throw.

I think Bria might have been the high scorer for the night. She would just chuck the ball down the lane, it would bump off of the bumpers a few times and then something amazing like a strike or a spare would happen. Dan was the high scorer of the night. John barely broke 100 and I struggled just to not get a gutter ball. It was a lot of fun though!

Spring Break

Before this week began I was a little worried that we would struggle with boredom all week, due to no school, dance, and being in town when so many people would be gone. But, the week has flown by with hardly a minute of boredom. I spent some time this week attempting to check off some of my to-do list.

On Monday I spent most of the day cleaning out ALL of our closets. I'm proud to say that there is currently empty shelf space in each and every one of our closets. This one was cleaner but I had to shove all of the kids bathroom stuff in there yesterday (reason to follow). Today we took our bags to DI and I was glad to be rid of them. Next week...windows!

My garden is now officially going. My "garden trainer" came over a couple of weeks ago and helped me start my tomatoes. This week they started sprouting! Five of the six are now up...not too shabby. Now I just have to get the ground ready for them.
I started accumulating a new summer wardrobe for the kids. I hate to admit it but I used to be sort of a snob when it came to used clothing. Let's just say that the DI and I had a very one sided friendship. I was more than happy not to drop off...not so happy to shop. I'm proud to announce that over the past year or so I have become a total used shopping convert. I now shop at DI, Other Mothers, and Kid to Kid. While I'm very picky (I only buy higher end brands), I do find some great deals. After trading in a few items of clothing at Other Mothers and finding a couple of great deals at DI today, I bought all of these summer clothes for the kids for $18. Not bad for 2 pairs of shorts, a pair of shoes, and 7 shirts. (Side note........is it completely crazy that Owen's shorts are longer then Ainsley's????)
I also repainted the kids bathroom. Okay, so technically I only painted the ceiling yesterday and I still have to paint the walls tonight. But the ladder is still in there so I'm checking it off because I know it will get done for sure. I had to get the bathroom painted so that I could get my new linoleum. I wasn't going to put in new flooring and then paint! So now that that's done, I can make John go shopping with me so that we can hopefully get new floors put in soon!
The kids kept busy this week too. We had lots of play dates which made Ainsley very happy. We got to go to a "postponed" St. Patrick's Day party on Monday. The party was postponed due to illness, it was a lot of fun though. There was great food, games and prizes for the kids, and even a pinata! You just can't go wrong with a pinata. Ains got so into it that we were all fearing for our lives when the bat was in her hands. I'm kicking myself for not bringing my camera to get a shot of the look of destruction that was in her eyes.

We also got together with some of my friends from high school and Ains got to play with a couple of her friends from the ward. Here she is playing with her friend Nathan, we got to have him come over and play while his parents moved....we're so happy that they're moving closer to us!
So, even though we had a spring break with crummy (I'm pretty sure crummy is a word in case you were wondering) weather, we had a very busy, very fun week! And on top of all of that, I even got my hair dyed...still dark brown...not sure it will ever go the color I want!

Happy Easter!

So here is a whole mess of pictures that pretty much sum up our Easter festivities. On Saturday we went to a huge egg hunt put on at a Christian church in our neighborhood, complete with inflatables, Easter rabbits, eggs, and a kids show. The kids had a lot of fun. Although Ains had a tough time during the egg hunt. She missed her age group because we were watching Owen's age group and the kids her age took off for theirs even though they weren't supposed to. I walked Ainsley over to the 6-7 year old hunt that was taking place next (I don't know if you can actually call it a hunt if the eggs are just laid out on the grass....but that's beside the point). I didn't realize I was sending Ains to the wolves and felt terrible when she got knocked over after picking up only a few eggs. Luckily there were some nice mom's out on crowd control that got her up and picked up her eggs for her before I got to her. There was also a super nice boy that gave her some of his eggs too. So, although she was sad, she still got her eggs and had a blast with all the other festivities.












Saturday night we decorated eggs. Owen lost the privilege of decorating eggs after he threw the first egg he finished decorating. After that he just plastered himself with stickers while the rest of us dealt with the dye.














Our Easter morning was a little chaotic. John remembered at the last minute that he had to leave early for church (good thing we asked the Easter bunny to come to our house during church so we weren't searching for baskets and eggs and trying to be out the door before 9:00). Not only did I still get the kids to church on time...I snapped a few photos of them all dressed up!



After church the kids found their baskets and eggs and ate WAY too much candy. Owen has been eating candy non-stop for 2 days. He is a master at finding candy. Yesterday he got into a bag of cupcakes and downed several before he got caught. Poor kid still doesn't realize that if you walk up to your mom with a cupcake in each hand and cupcake plastered on your clothes and face your most likely going to get those cupcakes taken away.

After festivities at our house we headed to my parents for a great dinner. We took the kids kites over and ended up flying them outside for quite a while. Ains was a pro by the time we went inside. And even amidst all of our "commercial" activities, Ains was able to tell us about the real reason we celebrate Easter today. I'm amazed at the detail that she remembers from primary. The tidbit of information that really stuck with her today was that "Junas" (Judas) told the bad guys which one was Jesus for money. (She remembered the rest of the story too, I was just impressed that she remembered that section in great detail).

Hope you all had a great Easter!

Happy 30th John!

Yesterday John left his 20's behind. I think he is now officially middle aged! I flopped on a lot of things for his birthday this year. I started out with great ideas and intentions for and awesome party, but instead he gets 3 mediocre nights of celebration. I was going to do a surprise party, but his birthday competed with Easter and Spring Break this year, so the not many people were here to help us celebrate. I ended up taking him to dinner on Thursday (day 1) and then we just had a family party last night (day 2).

For his family party he requested orange chicken for dinner and a black forest cake, neither of which I had made before. We ended up letting Panda Express provide the orange chicken because mine was not so good. I'm not sure it the cake was good or not, it's not my favorite cake and I don't think John would ever tell me if it wasn't good. I never even knew he liked black forest cake because he always says he hates chocolate and fruit combined. So after 7 years of marriage I learned something new.

John's main gift this year is a guys trip he's taking this spring to see the Red Sox play in Seattle. So the kids and I just got him a framed family picture and a huge cookie jar full of candy for his office. I tried to make him a collage of Red Sox pictures to hang in his office, but he said it looked too "white trash" (okay, he didn't say that but that would have been funny!) for his office and so we are going to hang it in Owen's room. We are having my family over tonight to complete his 3 days of celebrating. We are combining decorating eggs with his birthday. So, although my collage and my cooking missed the mark, and there was no huge party, hopefully he still had a great birthday! Two parties down, one to go. We love you John!

Overwhelmed

Spring is here and I'm starting to feel a little overwhelmed! Why is it that everything comes at once. I'm trying to get things ready for Easter, John's birthday this weekend, and I have to do sharing time for primary on top of my regular lesson on Sunday. I'm WAY behind on everything having to do with my home (groceries, cleaning,you name it, I haven't done it in a while). I need to make my Costco trip for the month, and we all know how much I love that! My leg is starting to get better, meaning I'm not quite as slow. But, I'm just so far behind.


I think a lot of my problem is that I can't just focus on the task at hand, I also have to focus on my extensive list of things I want to get done this spring. My dirty house is making me want to get some serious spring cleaning done. We're talking windows, closets, cupboards, EVERYTHING. I have some furniture I want to repaint, pillow forms I want to cover in some cool fabric for my couches.
I want to make a magnet board for Owen's room (thanks Maria for getting me set on that one!). I also want to start a garden. A lady in my ward has taken me under her wing and is getting me excited about gardening. She already has my tomato plants started for me and has come over to show me where the best spot for a garden would be in our yard and what we need to add to the soil. Sounds like A LOT of work, but I REALLY want t a garden. John is humoring me at this point, we'll see if he agrees to go along with the whole garden plan seeing as how a lot of the work will fall on his shoulders.

I also want to have some one come and replace the linoleum in our house (our linoleum is in pretty bad shape).

So, that is what I want to get done in the next 6 weeks. I need to get faster quick! I have a hunch that I'm going to have to let a few things slide or else I'll drive myself crazy.

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

From our family to yours

I think we found a winner for this year's Christmas picture. Okay, so I'm a slacker and haven't done Christmas cards lately, but if I did I would be tempted to send this picture of just John and I in our matching sweaters...because who wants to see pics of the kids? Am I right? Also, I look stunning with my greasy hair slicked back!

Anywho...........
This year we actually acknowledged that it was St. Patrick's Day. Ains took green rice krispy treats to preschool (from what I gather most of the boys wouldn't touch them but the girls loved them), and then we made and decorated sugar cookies and passed them out to some friends in our ward for family home evening. (Hey,maybe that's why we celebrated this year, because the holiday happened to fall on a Monday and therefore it was convenient to celebrate it.)

I'm not sure why we had a hard time getting a picture of the kids decorating cookies with happy smiling faces. But, we did. Ains was decorating her cookies and cut one in half so that she could give a half cookie to her cousins Maddie and Zachary. I'm not sure why they didn't each deserve a whole cookie. It's a mystery. (Sorry Dan and Paige, we were slackers and only drove around our own neighborhood, so Maddie and Zachary will most likely not get their half cookie.)
I was so festive that I even bought green cellophane for the occasion! I really go all out, don't I?

Discoveries!

There have been many new things discovered in this house lately. Owen has rediscovered his coat. And for some reason he has developed a deep love for it. He insists on wearing it instead of a jacket (even though it's been very warm outside) and the other day he wore it all afternoon. He had to be HOT!
Owen had also discovered shoes! He seems to have no preference. He will wear mine, John's, Ainsley's, or any of his own that aren't ones he typically wears. His obsession with shoes is much stronger than Ainsley's ever was and he does surprisingly well with heels for being only 19 months old. I don't mind that he likes to wear them because they usually slow him down a bit!
Ainsley has discovered Easter. We got down our Easter decorations a few days ago and since that time we have had LOTS of practice egg hunts. My children will be trained and ready when the big day actually rolls around. The day after we got down all of the decorations Ainsley ran from her room in the morning and was searching the living room with her eyes. She called, "Where's the eggs?" She was so excited and thought that Easter would be here when she woke up. She was a little disappointed that she had to wait a while for the Easter Bunny to come, but I guess that will just give her more time to practice.
John discovered Fantasy Baseball. He's doing it this year with a guy from our ward. Last night was the draft and he was proud that he was able to put together a team without a single Yankee's player on it. So we'll see how his "team" does this season. To be honest, I'm not really sure how it works, and I'm not sure how it is fun, but apparently it is awesome!
I discovered a little store called Graples yesterday. Ever since I moved here I have heard about how I needed to go to Graples. It's about 20 minutes away and only opened on Thursdays, so I always put off going out there. People line up in front of the store waiting for it to open and I had heard that it was always packed. But some friends of mine were going, so I had a ride and someone to go with, and I was able to find babysitters for the kids (this place is too small and too packed to shop effectively with children). So I went and found a few great things. My favorite purchase was all of this stuff for my centerpiece. I got a few other random things and I spent too much money, but it was so cheap...I couldn't resist!
I am also coming to the sad realization that I might be disabled forever. My leg is still killing me so I hobble around all day. My bruises have spread along with the swelling. And my awkward walking is starting to cause other areas of my body to ache, namely my back and my good leg. The doctor's advice continues to be something along the lines of, "just deal with it." I'm just praying for the day that I can walk with out a huge amount of effort. This is getting old! (And yes, I went to Graples even though my legs were killing me...I'm paying for it today, but it was worth it!)

I'm too slow

Unfortunately now that Owen can do this...

He can now get ANYWHERE he wants and can do his make-up pretty like this...

Since my leg just keeps getting worse, I just can't keep up!

Yes, I'm Alive

You might think that I died due to my lack of an update; but really I've just been trying to finish New Moon, our internet has been out, and I've been super slow and in a good deal of pain. So my first surgery/procedure is over and done with....now I'm just waiting to feel better. The whole procedure only took a couple of hours. They did work up my entire right leg (hence the ultimate wrapping job) and on one spot on my left. Surprisingly enough though, it has been my left leg that is absolutely KILLING me! The vein they treated must have been down deep because I have a bruise the size of my fist on that leg and I can't walk on it. It was kind of fun looking like the Michelin Tire Man for a day though! As the day went on and my leg got more swollen I developed all sorts of bulges fighting against my wrappings. (I wish the pictures did my swelling justice, my unwrapped leg is a good inch wider than my wrapped leg and you can see some of the bulges in this picture.)
I went to my ultra sound yesterday (everything looks fine) and the technician informed me that my legs are very angry at me right now. She said that all of my veins are stretching to carry the extra load that my massive bad vein used to carry. So all of my nerves are moving and tender, my veins are tender, and everything attached to the closed vein is moving and also tender. I wish they would have told me this in the first place! This is the most painful step in the vein removal process and it really stinks because there are no visible results. I still have big bulgy veins (those get removed next) and my legs are SUPER swollen. I was told to get moving though. So, I've been hobbling around and this morning I went and worked out on an elliptical machine. I really hoping that I'm back to normal in a few days. I'm also glad that my surgery could bring so much joy to the kids. Who knew that ace bandages could be so much fun? Despite the look on Owen's face, he really did like to be all wrapped up!

Today's the day

Today I have my first vein treatment. They are shutting down a vein in my right leg from top to bottom, and doing something smaller (I'm not sure what) in my left leg. I'm a little more nervous than I thought I would be. I'm sure I'll be fine, but it's just a little nerve wrecking anytime you have a laser put into your vein and heated up to 2200 degrees. I have a follow up appointment this week, another appointment in a month where they will actually remove the yucky vein, another follow up, and then an ultra sound to make sure that there aren't any blood clots where they shouldn't be. Five appointments! A few too many in my opinion (especially since I've already been in twice), but it will be nice to be done. So right now we're just hoping for no unwanted blood clot travel and a quick recovery. I'll let you know how it goes!

A First for Ains

Yesterday Ainsley bore her testimony for the first time. One of the counselors in primary gave a really good lesson on testimonies. She talked about what things young kids have a real testimony of, like Heavenly Father loving them, etc. She also talked to them about being able to say their own testimony, meaning that they shouldn't need anyone whispering in their ear, and saying what they knew in their hearts. After her lesson they let anyone in primary that wanted to bear their testimony. I thought this was great because Ains has been noticing some of the primary kids going up to the pulpit on fast Sunday and she started saying that she wanted to go bear her testimony. I just felt like she wasn't ready (we've never had her practice what she would want to say at home) and so I always told her that she would need some practice first and would be ready to do it by herself when she got older. So yesterday she had her first opportunity. She was the first kid up to the microphone (that actually talked) and this is what she said....

"I'd like to bear my testimony. I know this church is true. I know Heavenly Father loves me and I love him (this line she "borrowed" from the primary theme). I know in my heart that I will live with Heavenly Father one day."

Then she sat down. I was so proud of her! What an amazing little girl. Who cares if she forgot the "proper" ending. She was beaming as she walked to her seat....and I was too!