Utah

We went to Utah over President's day weekend. We went to a U of U gymnastics meet, went ice-skating at the Olympic oval, Bart went to U of U basketball game with his brothers and we hung out with family the whole time. It was really alot of fun. I had a blast and I'm so grateful for the awesome family I married into. Here are some fun pictures from the trip.Bart and the kids with his brother Brian who unfortunately couldn't skate due to his broken foot.

Cicely & Summer

Amber, Aubrey, Ains & Kenz

Sister-in-laws Amy & Lisa with cutie James.

Brynn, Kenz & Kiersten

Grandma Sue & Kemry

Me & my sister-in-law Nat.

Gross! She really licked me!

Thanks Davis Family for a much needed vacation!

(I'm sorry I didn't take pictures of everybody. There are lots of wonderful family members not represented here.)

The project I almost gave up on

Don't worry folks... this is not turning into a craft blog. I am far too uncrafty for that. I would however like to share with you my latest vinyl project. I love this quote by Henry Ford and I often say it to my kids when they are at the piano telling, crying, whining or screaming at me that they just can't do it! And I tell them, you're right! You will never be able to do it if you think you can't.

So I decided to make this tile and put it up on the piano for them. As you can tell from the unevenness of the lettering I am obviously no expert at this! I am just figuring it out as I go along. Well, after much wasted vinyl and many fonts later I finally did it.

The ironic thing is, is that I had just about convinced myself that I didn't know how make this tile. I seriously almost gave up. But I thought how could I tell my kids they can do anything they put their minds to but turn around and give up on something I wanted to accomplish.

Now, this tile has an added meaning for me too that I will take to heart.

vinyl

I've had a Silhouette craft cutting maching for about 3 years now. I am just now getting myself out of a crafting slump that I've coincidently been in for about the past 3 years now. This cutting machine has been my new best friend and it feels like Christmas all over again when I learn something new I can do with it.

My latest facination has been with vinyl. I've done a couple of small vinyl projects like Chirstmas ornaments, some cute jars for my friends and I helped one friend finish up her Family Home Evening board. Tonight I did my first on-the-wall vinyl project. Here it is....

What do you think?


It's one of my favorite scriptures Matt. 6:21.

My girls are such a treasure to me and my heart is so often overflowing with love for them. I get impatient and frustrated with them alot but I'm really working on showing my love for them more and being kinder to them. Maybe this reminder will help :)

Pregnant pictures

I feel like I've been quite a slacker in the blogging world lately. I think my creativity has been zapped out of my brain because I just can't think of anything to blog about lately. So, here is my fall back post. The much anticipated and much awaited for (drum roll please) dadaddaddda ......pregnancy photos!! Yay! I know you are all super excited and can't wait to scroll down to see the fabulous pictures and be done reading my mindless ramblings.


Let me explain first....NO this is NOT an announcement! Far from it. This is for my friends ...Rochelle, Mindy, Tamara etc. and who ever else I've only known in the past 3 years who have never seen yours truely prego. I know you all WANT to see me prego in real life and I know Ande prays for it nightly but it is really just not going to happen and you're all just going to have to be happy with feasting your eyes upon the following pictures.

This 1st picture is of me shortly before I had Ainsley so April 2001.

The 2nd picture is a few days before I had Mackenzie Feb. 2003. And the last picture was right before I had Summer in March of 2006. You can see I got bigger each time. So I hope you enjoyed looking at my big belly.

Those of you who wanted to see this better leave me some real nice comments!

Fancy dresses

Bart's mom always gives the girls the most beautiful dresses for Christmas. Here they are looking beautiful on Sunday morning.

Christmas morning

We had a very nice Christmas morning. The kids were very happy with all their gifts. Bart got a Garmin watch he's been wanting for a long time and he surprized me with an iPod touch! I wasn't even wanting one but now I love it! Here are some pictures from Christmas morning. Their new favorite show is Disney's Wizards of Waverly Place. They each got a Wizards of Waverly Place wand. And Kenzie got a Wizards of Waverly Spell Book from Santa.

Bart got a Utah Utes mug.
Ainsley and Kenzie were VERY excited to each get an Our Generation doll.


Above: Grandpa is trying out his new alma mater Snuggie

Below: My mom painted me this picture from a photograph I had taken of an Afican sunset while I was in Namibia.


Bart got the girls a jumpy house. Luckly, it's down in the basement now.

Snow much fun!

We got dumped on Christmas Eve and Christmas day. What a perfect time to get lots of snow! We've been staying cozy and warm in our house but the kids loved going outside and playing in all that freshly fallen snow. Bart had the day off of work on Christmas Eve and they made a pretty big igloo on our front boulevard. Bart and the girls can fit in there all at once! Here are some fun pictures of that day.




Bart, Ainsley & Kenzie are inside the igloo and our neighbor's dog tried to join them.

Was it the real Santa?

Mackenzie really wanted to know if this was the real Santa or just one of his helpers. We told her she had to decide for herself. As for me, I tend to think it was the real Santa.

I am so done with standing in those awful long lines at the mall to get 15 seconds with a sweaty old man in red fur and a fake beard. And then finding out that I can't even take a picture of my kids with "Santa" with my own camera. But of course, I could pay $15 for a lovely 5x7 of my kids crying on Santa's lap. I hate to say it, but last year we didn't even go see Santa because of my just stated frustration.

Well, what a relief it was to walk right in to our local credit union and spend a good 15-20 minutes visiting with Santa with no other kids in front of us or behind us. Santa had a real beard and must've been eating healthier this year. He was so good with the kids. Summer giggled the whole time she sat on his lap and she even sang "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star" to him. It was soo cute! The girls loved it! And I'm so glad we've found a new tradidtion!

Funny glasses=funny pictures

Rett Angel Kemry

This is my sweet niece Kemry who has Rett Syndrome.

Her older sister Cicely and younger sister Brynn are also in the video.

I love this picture

I took this picture the day we went to the apple orchard but I didn't put it in my apple orchard post. I love this picture and I just wanted to share it. I don't know what I love about it so much but now it is my background picture on my computer. Below is a cropped close-up of the same picture.

Halloween goodies!

We have had a fun weekend of Halloween fun. It started out with the Chili-cook-off and Trick-or-treating in the hallways at church on Thursday evening. Here are the girls all dressed up before we went. Above, Ainsley was a cute cow-girl.

(Don't call her a cowboy or you'll hear it from her!)

Below, Mackenzie was a really cute witch.

And below her Summer was an adorable Monarch Butterfly.

Then on Halloween day we went to pick out some pumpkins at Pahl's market. The girls had fun running through and playing hide-and-seek in the hay-bale maze. After that we carved our pumpkins with our friends the Amotts. Bart and I were both really impressed with our pumpkin carving skills this year. I actually have always hated carving pumpkins. I've always done just the typical jack-o-lantern face and it always turns out real dopey looking. Well, this year the Amotts had these cool cut-outs that we tried. I carved the cat pumpkin and Bart carved a witches face into his pumpkin.

And I have to say, I think Bart and I did an awesome job!

Oh- and the kids did an awesome job scooping out all the goopey gross stuff!

The Amotts have a Halloween tradition of dressing up in tinfoil like a Chipotle burrito and getting free food at Chipotle so we all decked ourselved out in tinfoil and got a lovely free meal. We got there just in time before the line started wrapping itself around the building! Kenzie, Ainsley and Lizzie in their lovely tinfoil hats.

It was really quite a hoot to see all those adults getting creative with their tinfoil.

After dinner we set out for some fun Trick-or-treating in our neighborhood.

We all had a blast. The kids got tons of candy and looked adorable.

It was definately a FUN Halloween weekend!