My Silly Girl

Aria makes me laugh every single day.  She is one part sunshine, one part ball of energy and one part pure silliness.  The other day I was trying to get her dressed.  I changed her diaper and as I was trying to find something for her to wear she slipped out of the room and headed for Michela's room.  She found a cute purple hat and then wandered into the boys' room for a book.  I finally found her sitting on the chaise in my bedroom reading her book.  She just looked so darn cute that I ran for the camera.  

One of her favorite things to do is look at books or be read to.  All of my kids have been this way.  I usually can't get away with reading less than 3 books every day at nap time or every night before bed.  Her favorites lately are her Disney Princess books and her "Elmo Loves You" book.  When she wakes up from her nap or in the morning I can usually hear her "reading" her books out loud.  It is so fun to listen to her.  

I often read to her and then stop in the middle of a sentence and see if she can finish it.  She has an amazing memory and often rattles it off with no problem.  The other night we were reading the Elmo book and I read, "Monsters love to ...", she chimed in "keckxercise" (exercise).  I started to giggle.  Then I read the next part, "and kids love ...", she finished, "buggle bum" (bubble gum).  That one really got me going.  And she says it in her sweet little sing song voice which makes it even cuter.  Oh, that little girl just melts my heart!

Happy 8th Birthday Hunter!

We were able to celebrate Hunter's 8th Birthday while we were still in St. George for Spring Break.  We started off the morning with opening his presents.He got Mario Kart from Grandma Hunt and Star Wars Clone Wars Wii Game from us.  He also got his very own set of scriptures since he will be getting baptized soon.I wonder which present he was most excited about?  He actually took his scriptures in their tote with him to church on Sunday even though we were just there for Sacrament meeting.  :)  He must have been pretty darn excited about the games though, because he actually asked if we could drive home right then so he could go play them.

After presents he had a deliciously nutritious meal of Marshmallow Matey's  and then it was off to Fiesta Fun.  We had a great time playing a round of miniature golf.Hunter and Chase were playing speed golf.  Mike and I couldn't keep up with them.  Here is Mike showing us all how it's done.

Aria was the most fun to watch.  

She would hit the ball and then hold her pose as she watched the ball roll away.  And it was always her turn!

After golf Mike and Hunter went for a couple of rides on the go-karts and then we went and blew some money in the arcade.  Then we went back to the condo for a nice long swim at the pool.

That night we tried out the new Pirate Island pizza place.  

The food was actually much better than I expected.  The place is all decorated like you are on this pirate island.  

There are caves, trees, huts and even a pirate ship.  There is also a little arcade where the kids had fun playing more games.  

All in all I think it was a pretty fun Birthday for Hunter.  Presents, treats, golf, go-karts, arcade, swimming, pizza, ice cream, ... what more could a boy want?  We sure love having Hunter in our family.  He is such a sweetheart and a great sense of humor.  He is a great help with Aria and a wonderful big brother.  We love him so very much!

Let it Snow

While we were in St. George it rained a lot and got kind of cold on Wednesday and Thursday.  Little did we know while we were enjoying shopping, seeing "Monsters vs. Aliens" and  making rice krispie treats that at home they were getting 13" of snow!  It's the middle of April for goodness sakes, 13"!!  Mike left Thursday and brought us some pictures of the winter wonderland back home.  Thank goodness we didn't have to deal with that.  And thank goodness it was all gone by the time we got home!  Here are some pictures of the backyard.

Spring Break in St. George

For Spring Break I decided it would be fun to take the kids down to the condo for the entire week.  The kids and I set off Monday morning and had a wonderfully uneventful ride down to St. George.  As soon as we got there we pulled on our swimsuits and went for a swim in the pool.  Luckily we were able to swim on Monday because the weather took a turn for the cold side for the next few days.  

On Tuesday it was cloudy and a bit cooler so we thought it would be a great day for the park.  The kids tried doing my exercise DVD with me that morning so they were a little worn out when we were getting ready to go.  Hunter looked at me with his sad little face and asked, "Are we walking or driving?"  I laughed and told him of course we were walking and he groaned, "but I don't think I can exercise anymore!"  Silly Boy!

There is this awesome park across the street from our condo.  It is the most unique park I have ever seen.  There are all kinds of different things to climb on, balance on and twirl around on.  You can get to the main structure through a little red rock cave and walk across a rope bridge.  The kids had so much fun testing out each apparatus.  It was also fun to have Aunt Lynette, Rachelle, Shari and the kids come with us.  Chase loved having Cody there to play with.  Hunter was Aria's doting big brother once again.  He loves helping her out and playing with her.

Michela loved climbing up the rock wall.

Chase is concentrating and trying to figure out his next move.

The three older kids loved playing on this big circle that revolves around.

Here is Hunter riding the "waves".

Michela and Hunter had a  blast on the big swing.  It's like a scale and it works best if you have two people about the same size on it.  Lynette kept pushing them so they were swinging all over the place.

Aria loved playing on the little kids playground.  She was climbing, sliding and even tried climbing up the little rock wall they had there.  Here she is looking through the binoculars.

  This little boy tried to get a hand on them, so Aria screamed at him and he pushed her back.  Luckily Lynette was standing right there so she kind of caught Aria before she fell off the platform.  Crazy playground brawlin'!  If you are ever in St. George I highly suggest giving this park a try, it is seriously so much fun.  I even got into it by walking up this wobbly ramp that all the kids crawl up.  It took me a couple of falls before I finally got to the top.

Hippity Hoppity Easter's On It's Way!

We had a gorgeous Easter this year.  The weather was beautiful and it looked like Spring was trying to push its way out of Winter.  Here is a cute picture of all the kids in our backyard in their Sunday Best. 

And Michela took one of Mike and I as well.  

We started off the  morning with an Easter Egg Hunt in the basement.  Last year the kids snuck down before Mike and I had woken up so this year I taped ribbon across the opening to the stairs with a note not to go down until Mom and Dad had gotten out of bed.  I hate not being able to see their faces when they first see the Christmas presents or the easter baskets and eggs.  

Aria was so excited this year.  She was running all over the place looking for her eggs.  

Chase found his pretty quickly, but his basket was tucked away in the theater behind the bean bags.  

Hunter was trying to carry all of his eggs around while he searched for his basket.

Michela was a bit of a stinker.  She slid through the ribbons and went and took a peek downstairs even though I had just told her not too!  The Easter bunny had fun trying to hide her eggs where they weren't as obvious.

After church we went to Mike's parents house for the annual Easter feast and Hunt.  The dads all hid the eggs and baskets in the backyard.  All the cousins had so much fun searching for all the eggs and their baskets.  Peggy and Lynette always go all out with the candy and toys.  

Mike was helping Aria go around and find her eggs.

I love this picture of Chase!

Michela was all business making sure she got one of each color and size.

This year there was also one silver and one gold egg.  They were the best hidden.  When Hunter found the silver egg he was so excited until he shook it.  "It's empty!", he cried.  Lynette told him to open it and to his delight he found a dollar bill inside.

What a fun day we had!  It's so much fun getting together as a family and enjoying the beautiful day.  

Food Storage Made Easy

My friend Amy mentioned this website to me and she said it had all kinds of great info.  Well I checked it out and I can't believe all the work these ladies have done!  What a blessing they are to so many of us who are trying to figure out this whole food storage business.  They give great tips, break things down so it is so easy to understand and have taken so much of the guess work out of it for the rest of us.  They send out these  checklists every couple of weeks with tasks to do to get yourself prepared.  And it is not just food storage, is is all kinds of preparedness.  They are coming out with a way to get all of their checklists at once so you can be working at things as quickly as you would like to be.  They also have very helpful spreadsheets and lists to help you with calculating food storage needs for your family and keeping all of your important emergency info in one place.  Here is a link to their awesome website-foodstoragemadeeasy.net

I think Jodi and Julie are some pretty incredible women for taking the time to make all of our lives so much easier.  Thanks so much to these generous women!

There are also two sister sites as well.  The obsessive shopper is all about buying food storage and getting great deals and every day food storage is a great resource for recipes and ideas of how to integrate your food storage into your daily meals.  I am just getting started with these websites but they seem to be loaded with lots of great information and I've already started using some of their tools to get myself organized.  Check them out, I'm sure you'll find something you can use.