Anna is 9

I can't believe my Anna is nine! {gasp} She actually turned nine July 3, but I am just now getting around to posting her birthday post. :)

Nine things I love about Anna:
1. She has a contagious laugh and brings a lot of joy into our home
2. She laughs a lot
3. She is a deep thinker
4. She has insights on things that are far beyond her years
5. She is so good
6. She is a great example to her younger sister and brother
7. I love it when she reads to Aaron
8. She catches on very quickly to anything she tries, from music to sports
9. She tells some pretty funny jokes

We finally had her friend birthday party on the 25th of July. It was kind of a beach/water theme party. They played a lot of water games in our backyard. They made a jar with the layered colored sand and beach-like ice cream treat for dessert. Anna wanted that instead of a cake. And that was SO fine with me. :)

Happy Birthday my sweet Anna, I am so grateful for you!

I {heart} friends!

I know I should be working on the MOUNTAIN of paper work for the adoption, but here I am reading your blogs and posting on mine. There are times when I feel very motivated to get it done, and then there are times (like now) that it is a bit overwhelming, so I avoid it and pledge to get back to it later (like tomorrow).

I have had such a blast reconnecting with friends lately!! Mike had an appointment in St George, so we went down and the Whittles met us up there. Fun!

We all had a good time seeing each other, and the SUN!

A few days later, I got together with my good friends and college roomies, Whitney and Shannon. So much fun girls~thanks!

Then Carol came to town! So much fun! The kids might have thought we were trying to kill them by taking them on a little hike, but we had fun and got some good pics!
Seeing my friends refreshes my soul! I am not kidding! I am so grateful for good friends! Thanks girls!
And last but not least, in the tradition of "hot rocks" we made "prayer rocks as a family. There is a cute poem about putting it under your pillow so it will remind you at night, then on the floor so you'll stub your toe and remind you in the morning. That's obviously not how it really goes, one day I'll find it and post it. It is a cute poem in real life. So far they have served as a good little reminder.

Shop Therapy

When you're feeling down, sometimes all you need is a little shop therapy! We've NEVER had a bed set before. So I saw this and liked it and bought it. It definitely makes making the bed way more fun!

I also stole this idea from my neighbor. I bought these magnetic corkboards from Costco (who knew they made such a thing) and covered them with fabric that coordinates with my bedding. FUN! What a pick-me-up! :) (Imagine them on a lovely blue-ish gray-ish wall, I think they look better that way) So then I put my New Years Resolutions on them, so I can be reminded every day of what I am supposed to be doing.

I actually think that the corkboards look cluttered now, so I might take the pictures down. I don't know. . .we'll see.

New Years Resolutions

I saw this idea in Creating Keepsakes mag. I put my New Year's Resolutions in pics like this, just imagine them on a cute painted magnet board. I made them on envelopes so I could open them up and write my specific goals inside. (I still need to do that)
I thought I would be clever and start all of them with "S".

They say: Scrap, Simplify, Spirit, Successes

Self, Study, Serve, Smile

The Successes one is where I will make a weekly list of goals to accomplish that week, so I can eventually accomplish my year-long goals. Kind of fun.

Home Grown Pumpkins

Blurry picture, but we carved pumpkins tonight. We have a Mickey Mouse, a bunny, and a bloody jack-o-lantern. All of the pumpkins were grown in our garden this year. Kind of fun.

We saw. . .

Yes, we saw it last Saturday! High School Musical 3! The girls loved it!! They thought it was super fun that they could take a friend. Aaron, on the other hand, about half way through was saying "I don't like this movie, I want to go home!" I know I'm totally lame, but I liked it. It was a no brainer, corny, and just entertaining. More musical numbers than the others, but same basic plot of all the others. If you have young girls (or boys?) go see it!

We also made Monster Cookies again this year. Fun, fun. Inspiration found here and from Heather. Way too much sugar to start off this super sugary season. I don't think I'll get my kids off this sugar high until after the new year! There is this dentist in town that will exchange candy for cash (they then give the candy away to different charities). I'm going to try to convince my kids to do it. Who needs ALL that candy anyway?!

A few random thoughts . . .

It has been forever since I have blogged. I have a bit of catching up to do.

*Warning* Blogger is not being my friend today, the font size is all over the place. I just wanted it normal with a few "large" words here and there. That is not what it is doing and I've tried to fix it and its not working*

* Today I have not done much and am feeling SO tired! I think it might have something to do with the fact that I stayed up until 1 am with Abby and her ear infection on Tues. night, then 2 am Wed watching Pride and Prejudice (the one with from A&E and BBC with Collin Firth, its 5 hrs long) and of course I had to stay up until 12 am last night finishing it. I L*O*V*E*D it! In my opinion it is a must see. . .

*A couple of days before my last post, we all went to a wedding reception up here for one of our cute singles, Kate, from Vegas. She's obviously not single anymore. . .Anyway, it was so fun to see her and meet her hubby. It was also a blast to see some of the other girls from the Singles Ward! Having that calling was so much fun! I miss it and all of you! Good thing we have blogs so we can all stay connected (hint, hint Amber and Tonya :) ) It was so good to see Parker and Aubrey and meet their baby. So much fun!

* Anna found a new friend. It was super cool and fun, but we decided to let her go after she started crawling up Anna's arm and clawing at her face. Obviously not a house pet.



*Last Saturday I went to Deseret Book and bought The Mother in Me a compilation of mothering essays and poems. All of the proceeds from that day went to the NieNie Recovery Fund. I felt like I met a movie star! C Jane, who has been taking care of her sister's kids and faithfully blogging about her sister and brother-in-law's recovery, was there. She was so cheerful and smiley, felt like a friend you'd had forever. While she was signing my book, we chatted about stuff, life, Target. It was a fun Day.

See?. . .I got her autograph. . .right there. ALSO, while I was at Deseret Book I picked up Paul Cardall's latest CD Living for Eden. Absolutely beautiful piano arrangements! Paul is the brother of our friend David Cardall from Vegas. He is currently awaiting a heart transplant. You can read about it here. His daughter's name is Eden, which makes the title of the CD more meaningful, and even brought a little tear to my eye. You should pick one up! :)

*On Wednesday, we had Enrichment mtg at the church. It was good. They had different little classes you could go to on marriage, raising small children, raising adult children, oh, I can' t remember the others. Anyway, they asked me to be on the marriage panel to help present and lead the discussion. I thought that was funny. Mike and I have a great relationship, we like to spend time together, but I hardly felt panel worthy! Ummm. . . be easy going and make eachother happy?. . .I don't know any advice! However, I picked up a few tips for myself.


We also made a craft. These little ornaments. They are really simple but I thought cute. They are just vinyl letters of "noel" and "wish" on the clear glass balls with ribbon. Do you have anything cute you've done lately? Super Saturday stuff or on your own? Post a pic or send me a link. I'm getting into the crafty mood. . .

Speaking of making my hubby happy, he thinks I should do a cute background. I personally like the white, I'm plain like that, I guess. We'll see what I come up with.

Spiritually Fed

I loved the Relief Society Broadcast on Sat.! I especially loved Elder Uchtdorf's talk on creating and compassion. There are so many ways to be creative. It inspired me to do a few things to beautify my surroundings and sharpen my skills. I think it also validated my love for photography (which I definitely need to sharpen my skills on) and scrapbooking, and not to mention blogging. :)
I can't wait for this weekend and General Conference. I found a website that has an activity book for conference. (It was from last conference) You can find it here. I didn't print ALL the pages, I just chose the ones I thought would keep my kids busy.
Let me know if you find another one, maybe one made for this conference!

Drumroll Please. . .

Ever since I saw the idea to use a carrot for a nose, I have been SO excited to carve pumpkins! I don't like scooping the slimy stuff out, so Mike is in charge of that. He does such a fabulous job! Our Little Princess wanted to do the skeleton face, she surprises us and likes creepy things sometimes. She even insisted that we draw blood on it. Creepy. Super Girl wanted the stars and Mike did the jagged teeth. Mike's brother and nieces joined us for the fun.

Monster Cookies

Thanks Heather for this idea! I think it is always fun creating in the kitchen with the kids. We really had a good time creating and eating our "monster cookies!" It was interesting to see the different ideas everyone came up with.

BOO!

We made these little glowing ghosts yesterday. They actually look kind of fun at night. The girls added their own touch to them. I got the idea and directions from family fun.com and its under "spirited jugs". If I knew how I would put a link to it (maybe some one could give me a little "how to" in the comment box.) :)

one project finally done

Today I FINALLY got out and bought some black fabric so I could take a few pictures of the kids. These are the ones that will go in the frames above the cozy fireplace. I wish I were better at converting them to black and white.

I was feeling a bit crafty. . .

Our Super Girl has been way into butterflies and moths lately, trying to catch all she can find (or get her hands onto). So we looked up stuff about them on the internet and then made a little "life cycle of a butterfly" thing.

We found out that some kind of butterfly likes to lay its eggs on aspen or apple trees. So we plucked these leaves from our yard and did a leaf rubbing, then glued "eggs" (rice) on them.

Then we made catterpillars out on pon-pons.

And we made butterflies by melting crayon shavings between 2 pieces of wax paper and cutting it out. It was all very easy and the kids enjoyed! So fun, I like to be crafty!

Hot Rocks are HOT!

Thanks, Heather, for the idea. We have really enjoyed doing "hot rocks" this summer.

April 6