Sledding!

I was sooo ready for spring when it was 60 degrees here last week, but I knew it wouldn't last.

It snowed Sunday, so on Monday while I was working Erik took the boys sledding with their cousins for 4 hours! It was a beautiful sunny day and the boys both came home with rosy cheeks.

Jack, Kire, Sophie & Addie

So now that we've done that, SPRING we're ready, so hurry up!

30 Rock

Carol (Damon): "Uhh, look at sweat pants guy. This is a 90 million dollar aircraft, not a Tallahassee strip club."

Avery: "No, we can't go to a hospital, this is Canada!"

What's so bad about Canada?

Jack: "Your milk comes in bags, bags. And if Canada is so nice and friendly, why does most of our meth come from here?"

Avery: "Are we not even making our own Meth? What is happening to American manufacturing?!"

I will miss Matt Damon, I think him and Liz are over.

And I couldn't stop laughing at Ron on this weeks Parks and Recreation.

When to start cussing

My friend Ashlee shared this on her blog and I laughed so hard that I have to share.

A 6 year old and a 4 year old are upstairs in their bedroom. The 6 year old asks, "You know what? I think it's about time we started cussing."

The 4 year old nods his head in approval. The 6 year old continues, "When we go downstairs for breakfast, I'm gonna say something with hell and you say something with ass."

The 4 year old agrees with enthusiasm.

When the mother walks into the kitchen and asks the 6 year old what he wants for breakfast, he replies, "Aw, hell, Mom, I guess I'll have some Cheerios.

WHACK! He flies out of his chair, tumbles across the kitchen floor, gets up, and runs upstairs crying his eyes out, with his mother in hot pursuit, slapping his rear with every step.. His mom locks him in his room and shouts, "You can stay there until I let you out!"

She then comes back downstairs, looks at the 4 year old and asks with a stern voice, "And what do YOU want for breakfast, young man?"

"I don't know," he blubbers, "but you can bet your fat ass it won't be Cheerios!"

I usually have pretty clean language, but Kire has picked up the phrase "good hell," and "frickin," which make me laugh.

Ready or not...

Baby #3 coming this July!

It took us a while to get pregnant with our last 2 kids, so when I had my IUD taken out last fall we decided not to prevent anything. And with this baby I got pregnant pretty quickly. The boys are over 3 years apart, which was great. This time around Jack will be just over 2. So I hope I can handle a new baby with my wild Jackie.

I've been really sick with this pregnancy. I keep thinking that maybe I was this sick with my boys and that the Lord just made me forget, but maybe it's a girl this time that's making me sicker.

I wanted boys in the past, but now I think I'm ready for a girl, especially when my boys are running around fighting and tackling me. And at 14 weeks the doctor is pretty sure it's a girl! I won't paint the room pink yet, but I'm getting excited. I would be fine with all boys, but I'm close with my mom and sisters and would love to have that with a daughter. And this might be my last chance because I don't know that I can handle more than 3 kids.

So wish me luck!

Stroller for $12

OK, so I got SO lucky the other day. I happened to be online and saw a post on a site I love, freebies2deals, for a new double jogging stroller on ebay for 12.99. It was sold by babies r us and regularly $189. I rushed over to ebay, bought it, and before I had a chance to tell everyone I know, the deal was gone. I was worried it was too good to be true, but today I got the shipping confirmation. How awesome is that. If I was smart, I would have ordered like 10, but I'm happy I got 1.

Master bath update

I've been wanting to do something with my master bath for a while. I found a shower curtain I liked and decided to paint the bathroom using the colors from the curtain. I still had some left over bead board and black from painting my kitchen cabinets, so I decided to use those. I bought grey paint for the walls and some new knobs and fixtures, so the whole project cost about $100.

BEFORE:

AFTER:

I painted the cabinets black & put bronze knobs on. Then we painted the walls grey and added the white bead board. The medicine cabinet adds so much space so I don't have so much crap on my counter and the new bronze fixtures make it look nicer. So it was nothing spectacular, but I think it opens up the small bathroom and modernizes it.

I still need something on the cabinet and wall, and would eventually like to tile it, but this'll do for now.

2010

This has been my favorite year so far. I love the stages that my kids are in and have so much fun with them. We've had a busy year and it's hard to put just one picture for each month, but I tried.

January

My sister Julia marries Trevor

Julia, Skye, Amy & my mom take a girls trip to AZ

February

Me and the boys go to St. George and Zions National Park

March

My sweetest Jack turned 1

April

(or March, when is Easter?)

Cute boys go Easter egg hunting

May

Erik and I take our first vaca without kids; to Florida.

June

Girls trip to COlorado with friends Scarlett, Lindsey, & Alicia

July

Family reunion in Bear Lake

August

I run my first 1/2 marathon!

And me and the boys pet tigers at the fair

September

Trip to Island Park with my family

October

We are Mr. & Mrs. Potato Head, Woody & Buzz for Halloween

November

Football season ends

and wrestling begins

December

We take our first family trip to Disneyland!

Kire turned 5

What a great year.

Christmas

We got a late start with our Christmas festivities this year because of our trip, but we caught up by making Gingerbread houses and toffee, seeing the Layton lights, and having lots of Christmas parties.

Jack & Kire making houses

My family white elephant party

Trevor, Megan, Skye, Jack, Trevor, Amy, Grady

Erik, Kire, Julia and Lauren

A few highlights were the Snuggie blanket I brought, a christmas sweater, a dog clock that has a different dog bark for every hour and Erik received some socks that say "want to shag?"

Christmas morning was so fun in our house with 2 little boys. We didn't get a ton this year because the trip was our big present, but each of the boys got a couple of toys that they really like. Jack got this awesome bouncing horse that he got handed down to from his cousins, and 2 books and a fun puzzle. Kire got a couple of boxes of legos, a game, and a matchbox race track with cars. But Kire's favorite present was a .97 cent wallet I got him and $1 that his uncle Cam gave him to put in it.

Kire was so funny opening presents. He took his time and wanted to look at everything. He was opening his stalking and would say, "Oh did Santa get this out of the basement?" because he had seen some of his presents downstairs after I'd bought them.

For mine & Erik's present we got the family a Play Satation 3. Our dvd player died about a month ago and we decided to get this instead since it's a blue ray player, it streams Netflix, plus the boys can play games, so I think it was a good decision (except now the boys have taken over the tv with NCAA football and Starwars Legos).

Lots of parties with the Thompsons. We had a Santa visit and had the kids dressed up for the nativity; well Kire refused to dress up and Jack chose a Tiger costume.

Jack & Kire building their hotwheel track with grandpa bart.

Kire with his Legos

Christmas has come and gone so fast this year, but I'm exhausted and ready for it to be over. I want to put away all of my Christmas stuff right now because I feel like my house is so cluttered, but I'll try to hold off for a couple of days.

Disneyland

Erik and I hadn't been to Disneyland since we were little kids, so I was so excited to go and take the boys. We went for 2 days, and that was perfect. We were able to do everything we wanted in that time. Disneyland was fun, but I think we're like a once every 5 years kind of family. The atmosphere was fun and the kids liked the rides, but it's crowded and we've been on much faster/funner rides at other parks. So I'm glad we went, but I prefer the beach.

Kire rode every ride, even Space mountain and the other roller coasters. I was surprised but he lOVEd the big rides best.

San Diego

Last Thursday we headed down to San Diego. It's our favorite place. We love the beach and have gone just about every year. Erik just finished up the football season so we were ready for a trip together.

We went to Legoland the first day we were there. It was a fun place, and I got cheap tickets, but I wouldn't recommend it. Kire loves legos so he had fun, but there weren't any adult rides and Jack couldn't go on anything.

The next couple of days we spent going to the beach and Old town. We went to La Jolla and saw tons of sea lions right on the rocks in front of us.

Sunday was beautiful, 80 degrees, so we spent most of the day at Coronado beach. The sand is so great there and it's wonderful for families. The water was cold but the boys played in the sand and we saw dolphins a few yards out.

Grandma Donna

My sweet Grandma Donna passed away last weekend while we were out of town. She had recently been diagnosed with cancer but had been relatively healthy until just after Thanksgiving when her health began to deteriorate quickly. She was such a wonderful woman and I am grateful to have had her in my life for this long, but I am happy she is with her husband now.

My sweet husband and boys dropped me off in Las Vegas on our way home from our trip Wednesday so I could fly to Arizona to go to her funeral. I was so glad I did. I rarely get to see my family who live there, and now with my grandma gone I won't have much of an excuse to go, so it'll be a while before I see them again. Then I drove home early this morning with my brother and sister, what a long week.

Amy, Skye, Dad, Lauren, Grady & Trevor

Casket Bearers

Kire's 5!

My little buddy turned 5 yesterday! Kire is awesome. He is so quirky and strange. Yes, I get mad when he won't eat food because it's "ugly" but OCD can be a nice trait to have. He is very organized and takes great care of everything. He will fold all of the clothes in his drawers and line up his toys and things neatly. He even yells at Erik when he tries to eat food on the couch. We are a lot alike. I'm so grateful for him. He makes me laugh everyday and is a great big brother.

Right now he loves cowboys so he wanted a cowboy party. We played lasso the horse, shoot the indian, pin the tail on the donkey, and had a pinata. We got him a leapster system so he can play games and I found some sweet leather boots at Savers for $3. He got a pillow pet, clothes and lots of toys, mostly guns from friends ( he got 4 guns, I guess they know him pretty well).

Guitar cake

Wrestling

Erik decided to sign Kire up for a wrestling clinic they were doing at the school. Kire doesn't show much interest in sports, but he likes play fighting and beating up his brother so this may be a sport he can excel at. And since Erik is anti-soccer, this is the only other sport he can start when he's 4. It was 4 weeks long with practices 2x/week and today was their meet. Kire was a trouper, he cried a couple of times but won 2 out of 3 matches.

He is so proud of his medal
Have you ever seen a nerdier smile

And just for fun, here's a picture of our bunny that the boys decided to put a football helmet on.

Friday Night Lights

Well the high school football season ended tonight for us. My husband is the head coach of Northridge and tonight they lost their playoff game. They made it to the top 8 in 5A and unfortunatly they got lined up with Bingham, the #1 team in the state, or they may have made it further. It was a great season, me and the boys enjoyed the games and especially the nice weather. Usually by this time we have some snow, but it's been great.

So I'm sad it's over, I wish they could have gone for 2 more weeks, but I'm happy to have my husband back. We haven't eaten a meal as a family in weeks, and half of the time the boys are asleep by the time he gets home, so they'll like having their dad back.

(And maybe our lawn will get mowed and my sink will get unclogged in the near future).

SYTYCD

I wanted to go to the So You Think You Can Dance tour show, but never got around to buying tickets. This week I remembered it was coming up and so I started to check the ksl classified ads to see if I could score a couple of tickets cheep, and I did! I was worried that the seats weren't going to be very good, but me and Brittani were pleasantly surprised.

When I went to the Michael Buble concert at the E Center the stage was set so far back that we could hardly see him, even though we had pretty good tickets. But with the dance show the stage was moved forward to the middle of the arena, so there really weren't any bad seats.

The show was AWESOME! They didn't do any slow, ballroom dances and they did my favorite ones from the season. I was sad that my boyfriend Neil wasn't there, and Twitch and Alex weren't there either so they didn't get to do their bad-a Outta Your MInd hip-hop routine (Watch it now!).

Halloween!!

I found this awesome Buzz Lightyear costume for Kire and decided Jack just had to be Woody to match. And since I was going with the whole Toy Story theme I figured Erik & i should participate too. So I made us Mr & Mrs potato head costumes out of felt. Erik was thrilled about it, obviously, but he was a good sport.

Jack thought his cowboy boots were pretty cool and has been dancing around in them for a week.

Also, notice "squeeks" (Jack's purple stuffed bird) which is in every picture because he drags it by its one arm everywhere.

We carved pumpkins, went to my moms trunk or treat, to our ward carnival and finished the night off by trick or treating. I love Halloween. I love the costumes.

I think it was on Modern Family this week, but they said "Halloween is a chance for men to dress like women and women to dress like whores," so true.

30 Rock

I didn't really like last weeks live version, but last nights episode was great.

Jack: "Break up with Carol? You two seemed so happy. The other day I saw you two laughing in the lobby together."

Liz: "A guy on crutches bit it in the revolving door and he was so scared."

Liz: "If I could push a button and 5 people in the world would die but I would get free cable for life, I'd do it."

Liz: "I'm the one with the performance problem. I freaked out and my junk closed for business. It's like Fort Knox down there."

Jack: "We are lovers."

Liz: "Oh that word bums me out unless it's between the words meat and pizza."

Jack: "I'm only gonna say this once a decade, you're great. You're Liz lemon damn it. In certain lights you're an 8, using east coast over 35 standards, excluding Miami."

FML

Yesterday I got my package from Shade clothing I'd been waiting for. If you don't know, Shade is a clothing line like Downeast or modmod, they have cute basic stuff. Anyways they are going out of business and had a huge sale on their website so I ordered a few items. My package came with 2 of the 6 items I had ordered and a note that said they were out of the other items.

FYI-if you're out of the items, don't let peoples purchase order go through, or email them and let them know.

Well I was pissed. Not only because I didn't get the $11 jean skirt I had ordered, but also because my shipping cost more than the 2 undershirts I got.

I sent a nice email to the company asking them to refund my shipping costs because I wouldn't have purchased the 2 $3 shirts if I wasn't being shipped my other items. It's only worth paying shipping if you get several items, obviously, and I wouldn't have even ordered those shirts if I had to pay $7 shipping.

They emailed me back today and refunded me $1. So now my great deal $3 shirts basically cost $7 each. Thanks Shade, no wonder you're going out of business. FML.

Bargains

I'm a total bargain shopper and this morning I made out big.

Last month I started doing Bountiful baskets, a food co-op. For $15 you get a basket full of a variety of fresh produce. You have to sign up Monday/Tuesday and pick it up Saturday morning, so I've been doing it 2x/month. It's a great deal, today I got this:

A head of lettuce, broccoli, carrots, tomatoes, squash, cucumbers, cantaloupe, pomegranates, apples, oranges, bananas and onions.

And after I picked up my groceries I went to Old Navy where they had sweaters on sale for $10, which I combined with a coupon I got in the mail for buy 1 adult item & get a child item free. So I got 4 adult sweaters & 4 sweaters for the boys all normally priced between $20-30, for $42. $5 Each!

One Sunday Erik overheard a lady commenting on how my kids always had to have the best clothes, and it was a rude remark like I was snotty. The funny thing was that day Kire was wearing a Polo shirt I had bought at a thrift store. I am kind of a name brand snob, because the clothes seriously hold up better, but I NEVER buy a shirt that's not on sale and I rarely spend more than $5 on anything for my kids. I just take the time to shop around and wait for sales and I can get my kids a nice wardrobe for cheaper than someone could from shopping at walmart. So there, don't judge.