Example Goes a Long Ways

My brother Jared is a stud. He is 16 years old, goes to seminary, plays sports and does a good job in school (right Mom?). But what amazes me most is how he is such a good example to other's at school. He is playing basketball right now and there is a kid on his team that used to drink and swear. He told Jared that since he has known him he hasn't sworn or drank for over a month. How cool is that? Because of Jared he stopped doing those things?! I don't think Jared told him to stop those things, but he just saw Jared NOT doing them and wanted to follow his example. When Jared told me this story I kept asking him questions and analyzing it because I was so impressed with it. Also, Jared let this kid borrow his tie because he didn't have any (they dress up for game days) and I told Jared to just give him the tie and Jared was like "i will." I also told Jared he should invite him to Church. :) What a cute brother I have.

On another good note...I went to Old Navy a couple weeks ago to take advantage of the 50% off clearance sale and got some good deals. Well, I went back today because I needed to return some things that I bought for Kyle that didn't work out and they are having this 2-day 30% off sale this weekend. I returned the things and asked for a price adjustment on some prego capris and a swimsuit for Kate that I bought for full price. Well, the lady said she could do it, but it would take a while because she had to return everything I bought 2 wks ago and then "buy" it again and my receipt was long. Well, she finishes and tells me how much I'm getting back and I'm like sweet. Well, once I left I looked at the receipt and saw that she had not only given me 30% off the items I had purchased at regular price, but she gave me an additional 30% off all the clearance items I had bought!!!! I got back an extra $25 or more than I expected! Woo hoo!!! I kept telling Kyle how cool that was and how nice it was of her to do that for me. So I got 50% off the clearance price and then another 30% off that price! Amazing deals!

I'm enjoying a yummy butterfinger blizzard right now thanks to joining Dairy Queen's Blizzard fan club and getting a BOGO free blizzard. Join!

Princess for a Day

Thanks for all your comments and congrats on my last post! I'm 12 1/2 weeks along and have been feeling pretty good. I am lucky and didn't get sick at all with my other kids. With this pregnancy, I have been feeling nauseous once in a while and, of course, tired. Smells really bother me sometimes too. And with working (especially in my profession) things have been making me more queasy than usual, but overall I can't complain. Kate has informed me she wants it to be a baby girl. I told her we get what we get (and don't throw a fit)! I'm kind of wanting a girl for her, but we'll see. We want to find out...I need to know...I like to plan. Plus, we have this bedroom situation and decorating situation that I want to figure out before the baby comes.

After Church on Sunday, Kate modeled the new skirt Gma Vicki made for her! My Mom probably whipped it up in 2 minutes too. It is a really cute skirt.

Here is Preston after Church in his manly suit. Gma Dee Ann's boss gave it to him and it's really cute on him. He looks like a little man. The vest is a bit short, but oh well. Of course, Preston already has his socks and shoes off before I thought of getting a picture of him.

Marci and Kate at the movies!!!

Marci came up on MLK day since she had the day off (gotta love teacher's schedules) and she came with Kate and I to see Princess and the Frog. It was a cute movie and Kate was only a little bit scared. Much better than when we watch UP a couple weeks ago. Kate was scared most of the movie! We don't take Kate to very many movies so this was a treat for her. She held the popcorn bucket and ate a ton of it. ha ha. Marci wanted her to dress up in her princess dress and shoes. Kate got many compliments so it was fun for her to feel like a princess for a day (I can't wait to take her to Disneyland someday!). What a fun day for her! Kate has been playing pretend now using the story line from the movie and "Tiana" this and "Tiana" that. :)

Marci found this cute idea online and wanted to make it. So since she was coming up to visit we decided to make them. It's this saying on transparency paper (you have to use a laser printer so the ink doesn't come off) and then you cut it to the size you want, roll it up and put it in the soap dispenser. You use the soap straw thingy to push it around and put it to the front of the bottle. It's cute, but I would highly recommend to use clear liquid soap. This soap I had gets in front of the transparency paper sometimes and makes the words cloudy. Marci did one with clear soap and it looks amazing.

Skating, Surgery and Surprise!

Before some of our friends moved away last year they gave us these passes to a skating rink. Kyle took Kate for her first time. He said she only lasted like 20 minutes and he had to stretch her out for a bit longer to make it worth it. They were home quick! :) She liked it though and was so excited to tell me all about it.

Preston had inguinal hernia surgery on Friday at Children's. It went well and he is doing well with his recovery. He watched a lot of tv yesterday and lounged around. You could tell he was sore because he walked funny and wasn't too interested in playing. Kate had the same exact surgery 1 1/2 years ago at the same hospital (different doctor). It's crazy that both of our kids were born with the same defect in their inguinal canal (where the hernia forms). We noticed it because their were bumps on both of the kids down in their groin area. Kate was 3 yrs old when she had her surgery so she was a bit older.

Me with Preston before the surgery. They gave him some "happy juice" to calm him down and he was all relaxed before they took him back for the operation. He wouldn't part with the blanket so they took it back with him. I felt bad for him because he kept asking for milk and for a snack. He couldn't eat anything so we had to keep him distracted with other things like cartoons.

Preston after the surgery. He looked like a truck hit him! His eyes were all puffy. The surgery takes 1- 1 1/2 hours and he is fully sedated. When they brought him to me he was crying, but calmed down when I snuggled him and scratched his leg (his favorite thing). They gave him a popsicle and it was funny watching him try to get it to his mouth. He did better than Kate did though! He downed the popsicle, it must have felt good to his dry mouth plus he was probably thirsty. They let us go home soon after I got him dressed. We had to check in at the hospital at 7:15am and we got home by 12:25pm so it didn't too long. It's always nicer to recover at home where things are more comfortable anyway.

Our next kid better not have a hernia in their inguinal canal....speaking of our next kid...I'm pregnant! We are so excited. I'm 12 weeks along and due July 31st!

I told my family on Christmas Eve. My Mom and Dad gave all of us kids a gift of our "favorite thing" (it was a tradition they did for us kids growing up). Well, I had gotten an ultrasound a couple weeks before (to give me a due date since I never know when I'm due with my crazy cycles) so we had a couple pictures of the baby. I wrapped a picture up and then gave it to my parents to open as their "favorite thing" gift. It was neat to see their expressions and all my family was so excited for me. Then, on Christmas day when we went up to Kyle's family I had wrapped another ultrasound picture for Dee Ann to unwrap and, of course, they were all excited for us too.

I was nervous to tell people because it didn't seem real (sometimes it still doesn't) so now that I've had another ultrasound and am farther along I'm ready to tell people. We even saw the heart beat both times I've had an ultrasound so that is reassuring. What's funny is that I'm due a week before my sister-in-law Sadie and my due date is the day after Marci and Carter's birthday!!! Our family just likes to keep all our birthdays together. It will be a busy month.

Holiday Festivities

We stayed at my parent's house for a week. It was a long time and we had fun visiting other family and playing games galore. I played more games over that week than I have in a long time. It was so much fun. It was mainly Marci, Sadie, Sara, Jared and I that played the most games. We played Mario on the Wii, a million games of Transamerica (my family loved that game), Settler's of Catan and then battleship and boggle on the Wii. It was great. We joked that our bums were getting sore from sitting so much. :) Almost all of us went up to the high school gym and played basketball together on Christmas Eve. It was so much fun. One of my friend's that I graduated with from HS came with her husband who coaches Jared in basketball. They were so nice to come and play with us. I hadn't played in forever, but I was surprised how I did. I was so sore afterwards though. We also had time to go to Miner's on Christmas Eve, which was so exciting for all of us since we love that place. Jared had a basketball game one night that I was able to go watch. He played on Varsity for that game so that was exciting. He's a good kid...seriously, he is so nice.

Kyle's extended family got together after Christmas and I made sure we were invited. :) They are fun to be with and all of his cousins's were visiting from out of state so we all got together. It was fun. We played some games and the girls' totally should have won. ha ha. The adults all gathered at Matt and Courtney's house while the boy kids were at Becky's and the girl kids were at Kent and Lousie's. We left Preston home with my parent's, but we dropped Kate off with the girls. When we picked her up she had dried oatmeal on her face and an extra ponytail. She told us they put oatmeal on their faces with cucumbers on their eyes and got their hair fixed. A little spa treatment. She thought it was so cool. Thanks girls!

We had fun laughing and catching up.

This picture is kind of fuzzy, but the best I had. Back row L-R: Courtney, Heather, me, Melanie, Holly and Nicki. Front row L-R: Natalie (due next month!), Brenda, Whitney and Brittany.

Preston is destructo at my Mom's house. He somehow found the markers and went to town writing on his face, arms and on my Mom's office mat that the chair rolls on. That came off easily, good thing he didn't write on the carpet. He also loved watching the digital photo frame, but the last 2 days we were there he started pushing it off the table and almost broke it. Geesh!

The night before we left it snowed! We were all excited to see some snow. Kate especially since she wanted it to snow on Christmas. She bundled up and went outside to make snow angels and play with Jared.

Preston lasted 2 seconds in the snow, but then my Dad took him on the four wheeler for a ride and he was fine on that for a while.

I got new dishes for Christmas from my parent's. They are really cute. I got them at the Corelle outlet. They are to replace my other dishes I got almost 10 years ago when we first got married. My old plates have seen better days so it was time for new one's. I think I'm going to like these for a while. They go great with my red and black decor.

Merry Christmas 2009

The weekend before Christmas we went over to Moses Lake for Nathan's baptism. We brought Dee Ann back with us so she could visit for a few days. We had fun having her at our house and she spoiled us and the kids. She even treated us to Ivars Landing, which I've been craving...yummy clam chowder and warm sourdough rolls. Delish. Kate loved performing for her and showing her all her dress-ups. Then, I worked Tuesday and Wednesday and we left Wednesday night to go over to my parent's house. Kyle rocked and had the kids packed, everything loaded up in the car, house cleaned up and tree taken down with Dee Ann's help by the time I got home from work on Wednesday night. He does better than me when we are getting ready to leave!!! The roads were great over the pass and we got home in great time. We met Milo and he took Dee Ann back up to Moses Lake to stay with them for Christmas while we stayed at my parent's since it was "their" year for Christmas this year. We rotate holidays.

Growing up it was a tradition to open a family gift on Christmas Eve. Usually, they are matching pajamas and then games and treats that we play that night as a family. I've kept that tradition going with my family because I liked it so much. So here we are opening some gifts. My Mom got some Wii games for Boulder Resort (and Jared), she made the kids pajamas and bought all of us adults pajama pants. We got Kate Chutes and Ladders and I surprised Kyle with Settler's of Catan (he wasn't that excited since I'm more of the game player anyway!).

It's also been a tradition to have a Christmas Eve dinner. We always have french dips with au jus, pasta salad, potato chips with onion dip and some sort of yummy punch.

After dinner the kids acted out the nativity. Here's Preston as a wise man. He took the robe off not longer after getting it on. He looked like a little Hugh Hefner in it! ha ha!

The nativity: Aubree as Mary, Carter as Joseph, Kate as an Angel, Paige as an Angel and Hailey who didn't like being baby Jesus in the small itchy manger.

This is what the nativity really looked like...baby Jesus crying, the Wise Man running away and the other kids distracted. It was funny though.

Everyone watching the Wii Mario Brother's game. It was a blast to play with multiple people. We were bouncing off each other's heads and laughing our heads off. We played it WAY too much over the Christmas week. Jared is awesome at it though. He beat the game a few days later.

Christmas morning!!! We all met up downstairs before going upstairs to see what Santa brought. The kids were so excited. They were more concerned if Santa ate his cookies and drank his milk. He did. The kids didn't wake up until 7:30am so it wasn't too early of a morning, which was nice.

Preston's gifts from Santa were a Thomas Train Track, Elmo and stuff in his stocking. Then from us under the tree we got him a Leap Frog magnetic letters fridge thing and a Cars Mac trailer with cars. Other people gave him a Little People Barn, remote control airplane, books, clothes, toy cars and Little Einstein DVD's which he was so excited about. He actually enjoyed opening presents and did fairly well with it all.

Kate got a dollhouse, barbie with a bike from Santa and stuff in her stocking. From us under the tree she got a Tinkerbell doll, Tinkerbell photo album with pictures of her that I printed off from when she was a baby until now (she likes looking at pictures of herself as a baby), Tinkerbell and the Lost Treasure DVD and art stuff. Other people gave her a digital camera, make-up, pop beads, Mulan barbie, sleeping bag, books and a new leotard.

Our little family on Christmas

We went up to Moses Lake on Christmas night. We exchanged gifts and visited. It was a good Christmas. We are lucky to have good family.

Bright Lights

We went to look at Christmas lights tonight. I was supposed to go to a Board meeting tonight (i'm the secretary for our homeowner's association), but due to a sore throat and then losing my voice I opted to not go. Instead, we went to this neighborhood that seriously gets into the Christmas Spirit. Several homes go all out and decorate their houses, yards and streets. You can donate food for a food bank and they give you candy canes. They even have speakers set up around the neighborhood playing Christmas music. We stopped and got hot chocolate before seeing the lights. It was fun and Kate and Preston liked all the lights and blow up toys. We even saw some fancy one's where Santa goes up and down the chimney. :)

Not having a voice is kind of frustrating! I've been doing a lot of clapping to get people's attention. ha ha! Then I have to use sign language or whisper because it takes too much energy to talk. I'm hoping I get over this soon because we have a baptism to attend for my nephew this weekend. My Mom called and she said, "well, you have been fun to talk to!" Because I don't talk! Ha ha! Kyle said he is my ventriliquist. Kyle wants me to get my voice back because he has to do all the disciplining and I can't explain things to him and I expect him to read my mind. See having your voice is a good thing. Be grateful for your voice...even if your kids want you to lose it. ;0