Finally!!!!

About a month ago, I awoke one morning worrying about my kids. I thought that they would have to be freezing because they only slept with fleece blankets (besides the sheet). So I started that morning doing my reasearch on what kind of quilts that I would like to make for the boys. I don't really like the look of most quilts that I have seen in books. Don't get me wrong they look beautiful, but they really don't match my syle. So after I got discouraged from I went to see what the wonderful people of pottery barn do. I wanted my kids to be able to use their quilts when they are teenager so I went to PB Teen and found a couple of patterns that I liked (yes they actually sell quilts) and the boys picked out they pattern that they liked.

Dallin choose this pattern.

We spent almost an hour picking the fabric at Joanns. The fabric that he kept picking was the ones with neon colors on it. It took me awhile to convince him that the plaid was good and then once he agreed it went a lot quicker.

Isaac choose this pattern. The only problem was that within a hour he had changed his mind three times. So I choose for him.

While Dallin took a lot of time Isaac was really easy. While we were picking fabric for Dallin, Isaac had latched on to a piece of orange fabric so all I had to do was go through and pick colors that matched the orange and get Isaac's approval and he agreed with whatever I suggested.

I am excited that they are done and now I can move on to other projects that I have been putting on the back burner while I finished these.

Halloween

Since this year Halloween fell on a Saturday I thought it would be nice to go up to my family's in Logan after Jeff's work party. Dallin didn't want to go at first because he wanted to stay home and trick or treat here to see his friend, but he changed his tune soon after we arrived there.

Instead of going trick or treating around my parents house, my sister invited us up to her ward's trunk or treat. The kids had fun going from one car to the next getting candy. There was one car that had ran out of candy that was in a bowl Dallin just walked on by to the next car, but Isaac had to wait for the person to come and refill the bowl. He wanted his candy. We then went to my grandma James' house and saw her for a little bit and then we went to Aunt Susan's and Patti's formally my grandma Stockdale's house then we came home.

I seem to always forget my camera when I go up to Logan, but thank goodness for cell phones. So here are the pictures of that night taken with my phone.

Dallin is Darth Vadar and Isaac is Black Spiderman (he won't let you call him Venom)

We tried to take a picture with all three, but Austin (nightcrawler, but the also called him a blue devil. I thought he also looked like one of the monkies from the Wizard of Oz) had other plans.

Primary Program

Today was the primary program in our ward. We have a lot of kids in our ward and I was glad that I didn't have to help out that much. Jeff and I are sunbeam teachers and we have a class full of girls and one boy that does not come very often. We love teaching them each week.

We Jeff and I were a little afraid today, because in years past Dallin has not done very well getting up in front of people. So this morning before church we practised his part with him. We had him sit in the kitchen and then Jeff would tell him it was time and he would walk in front of the coffee table and then Jeff would help him with his part and Isaac and myself would watch and listen to him. He had a hard time at first because he was pouting, but he finally was doing it without any problem after four times. So we thought he was set.

Isaac didnn't have a speaking part, but the sunbeams had a song that they were to sing. We went over the song with him a couple of times. He also didn't want to practise, but everyone was singing the song and we would stop at certain times for Isaac to say the word by himself. He loved the song when we finished practising the song.

During the program we were really proud of Dallin. He sang with all every one of the songs and when it was time to say his part. Dallin walked right up to the pulpit and said his part. Of course he did say it too loud into the microphone, but that is okay. The best was when he talked to loud into the mic and then covered his ears. One of the things that I think helped Dallin, is that we told him that when he gets up to say his part, to not look at all of the people. He should just keep his head down and say his part. He is a wonderful boy and he always gets so excited when he does something that he doesn't think that he can do. It is amazing to watch him.

Isaac spent most of the time playing in the chair on the stand. We were a little sad that he wasn't sitting and playing nice, but he was having fun. He got up with the song and stood with the rest of the sunbeams he didn't sing, but he is still a wonderful boy. He is a joy ot have around most of the times. He was too much energy and he absolutely loves to jump and climb around on things.

Celebrating Birthdays

Well I realized as I was getting ready to put up pictures of Isaac's birthday that I completely forgot to post the pictures from Dallin's birthday so I decided that I would combine them both:
Above is just one of the pictures of the many Lego's that Dallin got. He loved putting the small ones together. The larger ones he was more than happy to let mommy bring out the kid in her and put them together.

Another thing that Dallin got was the Bolt video game. He loves playing the game, and it is a thing that him and daddy can sit down and do together.

This is the sheet cake that I made for Dallin. It was my first attempt at making a sheet cake and it turned out to be pretty good. One of the cakes didn't come out very well and so it looked like it shrunk, but it still tasted just as good. Also, Dallin picked the color pink. It is one of his favorite colors. No we don't know where he gets it from.

Here is Isaac's sheet cake which again I made. It turned out a lot better than the first one. I wanted to make it green, but when I started putting in the food coloring it was a pastel green. I finally turned the icing grey and then I added a lot of green and got the pretty green color that you see above.

Here is Isaac's present. We decided that it was time to get him a bike with training wheels. He loved the idea and for the past two months he has been trying out the bikes at Walmart. We got him a spiderman bike. Spiderman is the theme of his life at the moment. He loves anything that is spiderman and points him out whenever we pass something.

Isaac also received a spiderman airplane, which he picked out and I tried to have him forget about it. He loves it and plays with it as much as possible. In fact if Dallin even hints at going to play with it. Isaac screams and runs to the plane and saves it from his older brother. That will be a hard thing to stop.

Final Summer Vacation

Well one of the best things that Jeff's work gives its employees is that they have two condoes that we can schedule for awhile. This year we decided to go to St. George last week. I know we went during the hardest time, but we still had fun. We invited my family to come down with us and they came for a couple of days. We also took a day and drove down to Las Vegas and went to a couple of places there.

Here are a couple of pictures:

This is a picture of the Shark Reef Aquarium at Mandalay Bay in Vegas. It was really cool to see all of the different sharks and other sea animals. The really cool thing was that they had a tour system where you had a handheld speaker and you typed in a number and then it would give you facts about the certain area. The picture above you can see a couple of people using them.

We arrived on Monday and we had around an hour to kill for our condo to be cleaned so we drove to the temple and walked around the grounds in the hot weather.

Here is a picture of the a sphinx outside the Luxor hotel. Dallin thought it was fun to see all of the buildings that were different things.

Here is a picture of the New York Casino and the roller coaster that is there. We thought that we might take a little time to go on the coaster, but we didn't have enough time.

I didn't take any pictures, but the first couple of spots that we went to was M&M World and Everything Coca-cola. I had been to Vegas about 12 years ago and we went there so I wanted to go back to those. For those that don't know M&M World is filled with 4 floors of everything M&M. You can get M&Ms in colors that are not sold in stores and also a whole bunch of stuff with M&Ms on it. (Pencils, towels, poker chips, etc)

Everything coca-cola is next door to M&M World and when I went 12 years ago there was a tour that you could take and at the top there were fountain drinks where you could sample any coca-cola product that it made around the world. Unfortunately, that got rid of the area and instead just offer a sample of 16 drinks of products from around the world that are only available in those countries. The kids had fun drinking the pop and most tasted pretty good, but there were a couple that hardly got drank.

Going Hiking

This is the second post of two Please look down to see one about some of the projects that I finished:

This year Jeff and I decided that to go hiking with our kids to hopefully keep them a little occupied. A couple of weeks ago we had our first adventure we took the kids up the Birdsong trail in Ogden. The trail is only a mile each way and has a little hill that was perfect for the kids. Both Dallin and Isaac had fun going on the trail and trying to see when the trail would end. This trail really just connects to roads together and gives you a wonderful view of Ogden. We also took both Lilly and Oscar. The dogs also had a wonderful time. Jeff had a hold of Lilly and I had a hold of Oscar. Lilly was really excited she loves to do anything in the outdoors and Oscar had fun as well, but I don't think as much as Lilly. On our trip back through the hike Jeff and I both let the kids have a turn of holding the dog's leashes. Dallin got to hold onto Lilly and Isaac got to hold onto Oscar. Lilly was okay with Dallin and the only problem there was that Lilly kept stopping to smell the bushes and then she would get tangled in the leash. Isaac on the other hand didn't know that he needed to make Oscar keep up to his pace. So for Isaac just ran along side Oscar for awhile until I took back the leash. Isaac still loved holding the leash though. Here is the one picture that I took when we were at the top of a little hill where you can see the view of Ogden.


This last weekend we went up to Logan to visit my parents and Jeff and I decided that we wanted to go on a little more difficult of a hike with out our kids. We decided to go on the Temple Fork Sawmill hike that we tried a couple of years ago with our kids and we ended up having to carry both of them out because it was a little too much for them. We invited some of my family to go with us. The only thing that we didn't want to happen was that we would have to carry out a kid that walked in like last time. This hike is only 3.2 miles out and back, but it is in the full sun for over half of the hike. We lucked out and it was overcast when we went so we had a little shade when we started the hike, but when we were going back to the car the clouds had gone so we had the sun. The last half is all hills. It was a nice hike and we all had fun. My sister Debra and her husband Andrew came with us with their son Austin to make a trial run for their backpacking trip that they took a couple days after this hike. Austin had a wonderful time looking at all of the scenery and trying to look at the river that we were walking by the whole time. The sawmill is the one that was used to get the wood for the Logan temple as well as some of the other buildings in Logan. It was nice to finish a hike that we hadn't a couple of years ago.

This is the sign that is at the top of the hike and shows what it looked like when the mill was working. The people that worked the mill stayed up there for while and they established their own little town.

This is the trail head.

This is the only thing left of the mill. Jeff thought that it looked like a pill of rocks that were placed there by a boyscout. He was a little disappointed with the ending of the hike, but he still had fun.

Here is the picture of everyone that went on the hike(minus me behind the camera). We all had fun and we were all exhausted when we got back to my parents house.

Projects Completed.

Sorry it has been awhile since I have completed these projects and I just forgetting to take pictures and put them up for everyone to see.

This is the first one I completed. This is an apron that iI thought looked really fun to do. The only other apron that I have is one that I won from a fundraiser when I was 13 or 14. So it was pretty small on me so I decided to make another one. The total cost for this apron was $17.54.

This is a pair of shorts that I made. I love to wear shorts during the summer and so I thought it would be cheeper to make a pair than to buy one when I made these a month ago. The are a pink and green plaid. I like them a lot. The total price was around $8.

This is the last project that I completed and the one I love the most. It is a knit dress that has bunching around the belly to hid some of my unsightly belly fat. It is a wonderful dress and I have already worn it twice in the last three weeks. The total price of the dress was around $20.

I had so much fun with these last sewing projects that I decided to make another dress. At the same time I will be helping my friend Jenn Klenk make a dublicate of the knit dress. She got a better deal because she was able to get her fabric for $5. That is a really good deal. I hope to get it done with in the next week and hopefully I will be able to post a picture faster.

Oquirrh Mountain Temple

On Saturday all of us went to the open house of the Oquirrh Mountain Temple. We told the kids a couple of days before that that is what we were going to do and then they spent the rest of the time wondering if it was time yet. On Saturday we left a little early and went driving around and the kids thought the whole time that we were on our way to the temple. The Temple is beautiful and the view of the whole valley is spectacular. I didn't have a lot of time to admire the view but I did take a quick look and noticed that you can see the Draper Temple from where you are. It was really beautiful. The kids had a wonderful time walking around in the temple and Dallin asked a lot of questions that Jeff happily answered. Isaac's favorite part was the baptismal font. He loved the oxen and when he saw them he said he was going to get on them. I'm not sure what Dallin's favorite part was because he was talking the whole time asking questions about what happened in the rooms. I hope that they got a lot from going and remember it. I know that I remember going through the bountiful temple.

Here is us at the temple. Isaac really wanted a drink of water from the bottle he got at the refreshment tent.
While we were getting into the car I overheard one of the ushers talking to a lady and telling her that the statue Moroni got struck by lighting. I had noticed when we first got there that I noticed that one of his arms is black and now I know why.

Updates on the family

Well it has been a long time since I have posted so I thought that I would give you the updates. First off Dallin has had a couple of cool things happen to him. First off he finally got over his fear of his bike and learned to ride it without his training wheels. He fought a little bit, but I made sure that I kept complimenting him on how well he did. I would run next to him for a little bit with my hand on his back, just in case he fell and he was a little afraid of when I did that. But I finally took my hand off his back and just ran next to him and he got excited that he was doing it all by himself. I am so proud of him. I love to see how his face lights up when he does something that he thinks he can't.

The other thing that he did was that Dallin graduated from Kindergarten. I was a little worried about what he would do for the ceremony, because when he graduated from preschool Dallin spent the whole time sitting down by us and refusing to participate. But this year was different, first off he went to school by himself and Isaac and I showed up later so that helped. He acted a little shy when I pulled out the camera to take a picture of him, but he sat in his chair the whole time and actually sung a couple of the songs. It is amazing to see him grow and get over a few of his fears. He is truly amazing. Below is some of the pictures that I took at the ceremony along with one of his good friends and his teacher.

Isaac has not had much happen to him, but he is still a wonderful boy and getting better at everything that he does. Ever since Dallin finished with school we have been taking a little time to practise and I have tried to teach Isaac a little bit. So we sat down and I was going to help Isaac learn his letters and to my surprise there were very few that he did not know. It is amazing what a child can lean when he spends his time watching PBS kids.

The only other news that I have to report is that I no longer go to work. Dallin and Isaac were being the littler terrors that they can be from time to time and Jeff and I decided that the boys were trying to tell us that they are feeling neglected a little. So I quit and I am now trying to focus my energy on making the boys feel loved. It has been nice so far and I hope that it will continue.

My next projects that I am tackling is that I am going to sew a pair of shorts, a dress and an apron. I know three projects, but I am in the mood for some new clothes and I found a deal on patterns at Joanns today so I took advantage of that and I also got a good deal on some fabric so that those three things will cost a combined total of around $50. It is nice to find savings. I hope that I will remember to put up pictures once the items are finished

Just a quick thought

Have you ever found yourself thinking that you just want to give up on the world. I find myself doing that more often these days. A couple of months ago I put up some inspiration sayings on my fabric board to help me. I thought that I would go a step further and write them here for people to see and hopefully get inspired. Here is one that inspired me today:

Our Busy Lives force us to focus on things we do from day to day. But the development of character comes as we focus on who we really are. To establish and accomplish those greater goods we do need heavenly help. -unknown author-

Have a wonderful day

Baseball is back

Well on Saturday was the opening ceremonies of baseball in Stansbury Park. Dallin is on the Dodgers Tee-Ball team. He really has a fun time and loves to be up to bat. Dallin also had a game at noon.

Dallin after one of his many times up to bat, unfortunetly he hit the tee instead of the ball so the ball went backwords. But he still had fun

The rest of the family sits on the sideline and watches him play. Isaac goes and jumps from chair to chair and will actually make Jeff and I move so that he can steal our chair. He is so funny.

This is Dallin as he got to first base. Dallin also on this day played right field. They had him play too far back so that he never caught any balls. But Monday he had another game and they had him play third base and he was able to get a ball. He was excited. The cool thing about his coaches is that they teach the kids their positions on the field and so they don't all go for the ball.

This is the members of his team that showed up to opening ceremonies and also his three coaches. Total Dallin has eight other team members on his team.

During opening ceremonies they walk around home plate so that everyone can see them. This is Dallin walking. I was so proud of Dallin. Last year Dallin had one of his anxious fits about opening ceremonies and also playing. But this year Dallin had none of that. He did try to hid his face a little at opening ceremonies, but he did not have a tantrum. It is nice to see him slowing getting over his anxiety.

Well on Saturday was the opening ceremonies of baseball in Stansbury Park. Dallin is on the Dodgers Tee-Ball team. He really has a fun time and loves to be up to bat.

Our Trip To Virginia

We returned from Virginia yesterday and I thought that I would share the fun that we had. First off it is hard to come home when over in Virginia Spring is all around. Most of the treees were starting to bud, flowers are in bloom and the wheather mostly stayed in the high 60s and low 70s. The pictures below are actually in reverse order but you will still get a good picture of what we did.

This is a reconstruction of the capitol building in Williamsburg Virginia. They dug and found the foudation and then rebuilt what it looked like from a couple of pictures. They were in the process of resconstructing another building across the street from this one. We went to Colonial Williamsburg on Thursday. If you have not been there it is a reconstruction of what the town of Williamsburg would have looked like before the revolutionary war. some of the houses have more of the original building materials, but the big houses like the capitol and the governors palace were destroyed in the war. They have people that dresss up like the people of the time and give the information. The things that Jeff and I thought were the coolest was when we went into different houses that would make stuff and they would actually be making tools, cabinets, jewelry, etc like they made them back then. Another thing that we took from this day is that everyone, both rich and poor, had to have the knowledge to survive by themselves if needed. Everyone knew how to make baskets, but the difference comes in that the rich would buy the imported ones from England just for the stature.

On Tuesday and Wednesday we went to Busch Gardens. In this park they have five large roller coasters. The picture above is a picture of our favorite the griffon. It takes you up a steep incline to 205 feet and then it lets you hange (the picture is showing the hanging) then it drops you down 90 degrees where you reach the speed of 71 mph. It then takes you through twists and turns and you do one more drop. It was the best. Jeff and I sat in all three sections and we found that they are all fun, but the front is the best with the hanging over the egde. All of the other were fun and we enjoyed ourselves a lot. Also at Busch Gardens they house Clydesdale horses. They say that they are the budweiser clydesdales, but we weren't really sure. There was a budweiser factory down the road though.

This is the largest ship of one of the reconstructed ships that the settlers from Jamestown came in one. The journey was 144 days and we both were glad that we had better means of transportation these days.

This is a reconstruction Native American hut from the powatan tribe. This tribe was close to the Jamestown settlement and helped the settlers learn a little of the land. These first couple of pictures were taken from the Jamestown settlement that was constructed around 50 years ago for the celebration of the 350th year since Jamestown.(though the only thing still standing from that celebration is one brick statue. Everything was rebuilt) Sadly it is not constructed on the same site as Jamestown, but up the river a little ways. The historical site of Jamestown is contolled by the national park service and there is still an archeaological dig going on there. There is also a museum were you can most of the things that have been found there. We did not spend a lot of time at historical Jamestown, because it was cold, windy and we were by the river so that made is even more colder. Also close to historical Jamestown they found the ruins of a glasshouse and then the park service made their own (with modern supplies). We actually got to see a worker blow glass and shape it to make a decorative pear. I bought one to remember the experience they had a couple of different colors of glass. I gought the green one because that is the natural color of glass. If you want it to be clear you actually have to add a couple of things to it. Also, because you have to have the fire extremely hot the people back then were only able to blow glass four days a month. There because they use natural gas they can blow glass every day.

The first historical site we went to was Yorktown. The site were the English surrendered to us at the end of the Revolutionary war. You can view the battlefield. Which the picture above is when we were on the battlefield with one of the english cannons. You can see replicas of the cannons that there used. We learned a lot about how the war was fought. After that we took the short walk to Yorktown itself, which was weird because there were actually people still living there. One house was a historical house then across the street was someones actual residence. We felt a little like we were intruding. The one house to see there is called the Nelson house. The house actually still has a little damage from the Revolutionary War. The sad part is that you could not tell by yourself which ones that were because they had put in some fake stuff as well.

Well if you got though all of that congratulations. Jeff and I had a really fun time. We loved going to see more about our history. We did take a day and a half and go up to Pennsylvania to see Jeff's brother who will be starting his residency in June at the Abington hospital. It was nice to see them since we haven't in four or five years. The best thing about this trip is it got both of us jazzed to learn more about the revolutionary war.

Going to Virginia

Well tomorrow is the day that I travel up to Logan to drop off my children at my parent's house so that Jeff and I can go to Virginia for a week. Jeff and I haven't been away together for awhile. We have had my parents take the kids for a week here and there when we needed a break, but we never went farther than Salt Lake. The last time we took a trip just the two of us was when we went to Anaheim in November of 2004.

We leave Friday morning and we will arrive in Richmond, VA at around 4:30. We will then drive to our hotel in Williamsburg, thanks to Jeff's mom getting us a really good deal. On Saturday we will go to Busch Gardens in Williamsburg and ride some fast rollarcoasters. Then on Sunday we will make the drive up to Jeff's brother who lives in Pennsylvania. We will spend Sunday up there visiting them. We haven't seen them since they moved a couple of years ago so that will be nice. On Monday, on our way back from Pennsylvania we will be stopping in Washington DC and visiting at least a couple of the smithsonian museums at the National Mall. I am not sure how much we will be doing because it is suppose to rain.

The rest of our week we will be spending in Williamsburg going to Colonial Williamsburg and just relaxing as Jeff likes to do when he goes on vacation. We will come home on Friday at around noon. Then on Saturday we will go and pick up our kids from my parents in Logan.

I am excited to be going on this adventure with Jeff in a couple of days and also the much needed vacation.

Updates!! Since it has been awhile

I was looking today and saw that the last post that I did was about Valentine's day. Well not a lot of things have happened but here is some that have:

Isaac was bored one day waiting for me to get off of work so he decided to sit in his dad's chair and wait. I really thought that he was asleep, but he was just being really quiet

I have taken up the task of giving my boys haircuts to try and save money. Dallin usually complains that whole time because he hates it. Well we let it go a little longer than we normally do and he loves having his hair spikey so we took a picture of how long we let his hair get.

Sometimes we look in on the kids when we go to bed. Well one night Jeff noticed that Dallin was in a weird position. We both thought that it was just too funny to pass up. He gets this from me. I am always sleeping in weird positions throughtout the night.

I would also like to update you on what I have been doing. In January I volunteered to do some scorekeeping for the Tooele Jr. Jazz program. I had a lot of fun and the person who scheduled the games thought I did a good job because she gave me a lot of games. In total I did 34 games over nine weeks. I had a lot of fun and am a little sad that it is now over. When we had our first meeting I was surprised to learn that I would get paid for the work that I did. So even though it wasn't a lot of money I still made $272. It was nice to get that little supplement to our incomes in this economy.

New Car!!

In the past month, our little Mitsubishi Mirage had a problem with one of its tires so Jeff took it in to get the tire replaced. What he found out is that we also needed to get the struts replaced or we would have to keep replacing tires a lot sooner than otherwise. We had also reached 900,000 miles on the car and needed to replace a belt. Well I did the math in my head and thought that now was the best time to trade in the car. The total in repairs would cost between $1000-$1500. Also we were not sure something else would be wrong as well.


So one weekend we went up to see my parents and had my family watch our kids and we went to test-drive cars. We first went to a Toyota and Honda dealer to try out those cars. and it turns out that we got a very good deal on the car and on our trade in (they gave us $1500). So we let with a 2009 Toyota Yaris. We thought that we were just going to test drive some cars for a little bit, but because of the deals we got we decided to buy.
Here is the picture of the car.



This is not our actual car, but it is the same color.:

Valentine's Day

This saturday was Valentine's Day. We celebrated the holiday by:

-I helped the kids make valentines for their father. Which he loved.
-I made huge heart sugar cookies for the kids.
-I gave Jeff a CD of songs that he has been listening to on Youtube.
-We watched the Utah State game on TV.
-Jeff and I watched a couple of MI-5 episodes and fell asleep during the second one.

Jr. Jazz Basketball

This year Dallin decided he wanted to play basketball. So one day I took my camera and took some pictures of him playing with the other kids in kindergarten.


This is when Dallin got the ball. All the kids when they get the ball forget to dribble.

Here is Dallin trying to get the ball.

Dallin thought that running up and down was a little borring so he started to do some twirling towards the person who had the ball.

At the start of the game. I am not sure what Dallin was doing but he is playing.

At the end of each practise they run laps across the gym. Dallin had fun anyway. At first Dallin did what he always did and pout on the sideline. But after a couple of weeks he finally started to participate for the whole time.