Time to start again

Well as I was looking over past posts, I thought that I need to get my act together and start posting about our lives again. I don't have any pictures yet. Let's face the fact that I hardly take any photos at all. I am going to rectify that situation in the next couple of months. But probably more like years.

Quick update:
Jeff is still working at Spillman and is loving that. I love how hard he works for us. This weekend we are going on an extended holiday vacation and my parents have been kind enough to watch our kids so it will be just us.

Last summer Jeff and I went to a basketball officiating camp where we both had a wonderful time. Half way through the camp the evaluators were telling Jeff that I should become a high school official. So after a couple of months of deciding if I could do it. I made the jump and became a high school official. So the last couple of months have been extremely busy for my family. There are some weeks where I am gone 5-6 days of the week officiating. I do love it and the money has been a nice little bonus. My chapter of the UHSAA officials voted me Rookie of the Year for this season. I was shocked and it made me feel that all of my hard work was not for nothing.

Another change that has come is that Jeff and I are no longer in the Primary. We got released when I got put in as the Relief Society Secretary. I am busier during the week, but I love organizing and making little handout so I am having a lot of fun. I am still in the stake and TCC Young Women sports, but I will be released at the end of the basketball season in the next couple of weeks from the Stake. Which will be nice because I am way to busy for it.

Dallin is now in the fourth grade and he is doing wonderfully. The first term he actually only got 1 C and the rest were As. This last term he pulled up the C to an A. He is really excited that he got all As. He finally doesn't fight us whenever he has to read for homework. The school signed them up for something Razkids and that has helped him read books.

Isaac is in first grade and he loves it as well. He isn't as social as Dallin, but he does have his moments when he bothers the kids next to him. He is a wonderful learner and can do math at a drop of a hat. He is a wonderful boy and will turn 8 this year. We hope that he chooses to be baptized. In the summer and the fall both of the boys chose to play soccer. In last spring both of them loved playing. Isaac more than Dallin. In fact Isaac scored a couple of goals. In the fall Isaac moved up to where he actually had to play positions and it wasn't as fun for him. We also didn't like that it took up all of the Saturdays in the Spring so that we couldn't go hiking.

Kaden is a joy. We still have a hard time not referring to him as a baby. In fact he calls himself baby. We are trying to break him of that, but it is just so cute when he calls himself a baby. He loves to play with balls and thinks that every ball is a soccer ball. He really liked to watch his older brothers play soccer. We got him his own tiny soccer ball and we would take it to the games and watch him kick it around on the side line.

The Sunday before Thanksgiving while we were visiting Jeff's parents, Kaden decided to play on the couch and he ended up breaking his collar bone. It was quite an adventure to get it diagnosed. It took 1 emergency room visit and an instacare visit to finally get it diagnosed. We then took him to a specialist after Thanksgiving and Kaden had to wear a brace for about a month. He was such a trooper. It was really sad to see him so miserable. There were a couple of days where Jeff and I just held him. We love that little man. He is all healed and back to his tricks of falling off the arm of the couch to the middle of couch. That boy will never learn.

Well I think I highlighted a couple of the best points. I know this was suppose to be quick but who can really make almost a year's worth of stuff into a paragraph. I will be back with more pictures and more explanations.

Easter!!!

I am a little slow getting these pictures up, but better late than never. One reason is we were asked on Easter Sunday if jff and I would give talks the next Sunday. So I spent the week after, researching, worried, and then writing my talk. I am glad to say that it is finished and hopefully I do not have to talk in sacrament meeting for years. 

Now it is on to the Easter festivities. The week before Easter Dallin and Isaac had spring break so everyone except Jeff headed up to Logan to spend some time with my family. The main reason is because this week jeff is doing a PMP training, and he needed that time to get ready for the training and get caught up with his new promotion.

Everyone had a lot of fun and the real party didn't start until Thursday when we had a craft day. My sister, Debra, picked out a couple of crafts for us to do and my mom, my sister Amanda, my sister Debra, and myself all took the afternoon and made some crafts. If you would like to see the pictures, I will blog about it on my crafting blog Splendid Failure Crafts.

On Friday, we went to the baby animal days that is put on at the Heritage Center in Wellsville. The kids had fun going and looking at the animals. I think Dallin had the most fun seeing the animals. We saw baby ducks, chicks, rabbits, ponies, pigs, lambs, cows, and even some baby bears. Kaden didn't really care for the animals, until he saw them in their pen. He loved them. There was also a white peacock on site and I have never seen one of them. I made a collage of the pictures.

On Saturday, there were a lot of stores running an Easter egg hunt. I wasn't planning on going to any that began at 8:30 in the morning, but Kaden woke me up at 7:30 on Saturday, so we went. The first place we went to was, Smith's Marketplace. Smith's was also serving donuts and juice so the kids and I also got some free breakfast while waiting for the hunt to start. First up was Kaden and I had to leave Dallin and Isaac by the cart, while I went to help him find eggs. He was a typical 18 month old, find the first thing and is just happy with that. I ended up helping him put the egg in the bag and finding 4 more eggs. At that point I was happy and we left to go see Dallin and Isaac.

Dallin and Isaac were in the same group so we went to their area. Dallin is not a fan of running to try and get candy in public, so I was giving him a pep talk. I told the boys that we should just try to get 1 egg and be happy. It turned out that it was inspiration, because both of the boys got just 1 egg. It was a mad house. But everything was great.

Smith's also had a egg decorating place, so we decorated some cookies and then back to the grandparents to wait for the next hunt. The next hunt was at the mall, and unfortunetly Dallin didn't want to participate, so he went and played on in the child area, while I waited in line with Kaden. Isaac had to stay in line by himself because Kaden and Isaac were hunting at the same time.  He did fine and got lots of candy. Kaden did better this time and even came away with a baloon. Everyone had fun.

Later that day everyone came over and we had egg olympics, and everyone had fun. the kids and I left after dinner that night for home. I was tired the next day and occupied with practising for the choir number the next day, that I didn't take any pictures of the boys playing with their toys and eating their candy. But it was a great week. I also made a collage of pictures for the Egg olympics.

February Activities

I noticed today that it has been over a month since I have updated the blog with what my family has been doing. So here we go.

Dallin- Has been playing basketball in two places. We signed him up for the Stansbury Stallions and for Jr. Jazz in Magna. He wasn't as excited about practice this year as he was last year, but I think it is because he would see that he wouldn't get to do some things that we were doing that night because he would have practice in Magna. He hated to go to the Stansbury Stallions this because it was for an hour and a half and was with over 100 people so he would have a lot of down time while the other people were getting their turn. But he had fun at the Jr. Jazz games and towards the end of the season he actually started to go after the ball.


Isaac- At the beginning of the month he started getting a fever of 103. I would then give him some medicine and it would work its magic and bring the temperature down and he would be fine for the rest of the day where the fever would stay around 99. The next morning it would start out at around 99 and then after lunch it would spike again to 103. I would give medicine and then he would be fine for the rest of the day. His body would have this pattern for around 10 days. At around day 5 I took him to the doctor and there was no infection that she could find. He even had to go get his blood drawn and pee in a cup for tests for different infections. All tests came back negative. At around day 8 when the fever roller coaster still hadn't gone away on its own, the doctor started him on antibiotics. He had the fever for the next couple of days, but it finally did break and not come back on February 13th. So he was able to go to his valentine's day party the next day. he was so excited. It was sad to see him so happy and playing in the morning and then after lunch he would lay down and stay that way for a couple of hours until the fever broke and then he would start to play a little bit. After the 10 days of fever though he wouldn't even start to play. We don't really know what was going on, but he is back to his old self now and we are happy to have our Isaac back.

Kaden- What can I say about our baby. Yes we still think of him as a baby even though he is 18 months old. Yesterday he went to nursery for the first time. Jeff went with him and he thought he would have to stay the whole time through the play with toys time, but Kaden was having so much fun playing with the toys, that Jeff left to come join me in Primary to help with your 10 yr old class. No one came and got us, and when we went and picked him up he was happy to see us. Jeff got to the room first and was calling Kaden's name, but he didn't drop his toy and come running until he saw me, and knew that it was time to leave. He is such a cute boy. This month Kaden figured out how to get his own cereal out of the bag, when I forget to shut the pantry door. I was making dinner one night and turned around to find him like in the picture to the left. It was so cute that I took the picture. He was such a sneak. We call him our a ruckus when he gets into our things, but he is such a cute ruckus that he makes us smile when we find out.

Parents- This year for valentine's day I thought I would give Jeff 14 days of valentines instead of just one. So it started with me leaving a note in his gym bag so when he went to play racquetball with some guys at his work he would know that I loved him. He found the note a little early and the snack that I left in there, but he loved the gesture. I would leave a note every day for him somewhere where he would find it. Sometimes I would leave one of his favorite snacks. By the end of 14 days, Jeff was starting to say that I was making him fat, but he loved all of the notes of love and kindness. Jeff ordered me flowers on valentine;s day and it was a new experience for both of us having flowers shipped through UPS. I don't think Jeff liked how it turned out and will not be buying flowers over the Internet again, but I loved the flowers and I felt very loved that day. I snapped a picture a couple of days after valentine's when the flowers looked their best. It was definitely a bouquet of flowers that got better over time. In fact they are still doing just fine sitting on my kitchen table. We also went out to sushi that weekend when we were up at my parents and we had a ball being out together. We need to do more of that.

Family Activities-I love doing things together as a family, especially when we got to a sporting event. This year Dallin became in love with the Jazz. He went to one game when they came back from the lockout, which was free for us because of Jr. Jazz, and he had fun and actually followed the game the whole time. So we planned to take everyone to a Jazz game this month as a reward for working on the basement. The day that I had planned to take everyone turned out to be on the only weekend that was perfect to go see my family over a couple of days. So i cancelled the Jazz game. The day before we left I thought about seeing if the Utah State basketball team had a game that we could replace the Jazz game with. It turned out that they did and I bought 4 tickets, which turned out to be a lot cheeper than going to the Jazz game. Everyone had a lot of fun at the game. You can see from the picture that I took with my phone, that Dallin is paying attention, Isaac is being his normal self when I pull out a camera, and Jeff he looks bored, but if I remember correctly the Aggies weren't doing the best at this time so he might be a little frustrated. Utah State didn't win, but we all had fun and I was able to tell the boys that I used to work here and be up in the media box and on the floor taking stats. It was a little sad, because I miss taking stats for Utah State. It was one of the happiest times that I had at college. We all had fun and that is a plus.

I had to share this last photo becuase Kaden is just too cute. He is funny in the fact that he will let you put something on his head and he will keep it there for awhile. He was in the bath and I put his vampire duck and an alligator toy on his head and he thought that was fun. He wold actually continue playing with the other toys and leave these toys on his head. We play a game with our kids where we put an animal on there head and then name their heads the animal with head, brain, or any other name for the head we can think of. So since I was able to get two animals on his head I named him ducky head alligator brain for this picture.

So we have all had fun enjoying our new basement this last month and Jeff and I can't believe how we ever lived without the basement being done. It took along time to finish, but now that it is done we love it. Next project will be our pantry shelves, and then it is on to my craft room where demolition will be involved. I can't wait to try my hand at breaking down a wall with a sledge hammer. It should be fun.

Update on our lives throughout November

Yes I know that November isn't over yet, but with everything that will happen this week I wanted to give a little update on everything. Basketball season has arrived and Dallin is in a clinic run by Stansbury High School. They help teach the boys some of the fundamentals, and since the Jr. Jazz program in Tooele and Stansbury got shut down for not paying their bills(don't get me started) This is where Dallin went.

Although a couple of weeks ago, we got asked to join the Jr. Jazz program in Magna with a boy from our ward. So Jeff and I decided that would be good for Dallin. Since the father of that boy will be the coach, he offered to carpool Dallin into Magna for us, so that saves us a 20 min drive twice a week which is nice.

Our house has offically become of a house of a toddler. Even thought Kaden turned 1 on Aug. 31, he wasn't walking so I still considered him a baby, but in the last couple of weeks Kaden has found the confidence to let go of the furniture or hand by himself and walk towards something. The funny thing is that it is usually after mommy. I got to admit that I love to have him love me so much, but at the same time I can't hold him all of the time.

The happiest piece of news that I can come up with is that we are close to getting our basement ready for the drywall. Our goal is to have the drywall up downstairs by christmas and since we are paying someone to come in and do it for us it will be done. We have a couple of things that need to be finished before we can call them to come and do it, but it should only take a couple of weeks for the workers to finish it up. Jeff and I are so excited for me finally to have my craft room back. He has been very patient with me while I have had all of my crafting supplies in our bedroom and around our kitchen table.

While the basement plumbing was getting completed we had the plumber that we hired move the plumbing for our washer and dryer into the front bedroom. Isaac has to sleep in that room until his room gets completed, but I just make sure that all of the laundry is done before bed and he doesn't mind. It is nice to have a larger place to sort the clothes. The best thing of all is the dryer vent is maybe a foot long where before it ran the width of our house. It has made our dryer more efficient and it should be easier to clean by ourselves if it ever becomes clogged.

The last piece of news is that I have started a crafting blog. I have been reading a lot of blogs about crafts and I have a lot of ideas on how to make some of my own and now I have a place to share my experiences. I wanted to have the site open to anyone, but didn't want all of them to read about everything my family does, so I had to separate them. If you would like to see what it is all about please go to http://splendidfailurecrafts.blogspot.com/. I posted my first tutorial on how to make a Flower belt.

Halloween festivities

I want to combine all of the activities that we did for Halloween into one post. We started out this year's Halloween activities by going to the school Halloween carnival. Dallin and Isaac had a really fun time playing in the bounce houses. After a little time letting them have fun I made them go inside to play some games, because I was cold. They played a couple of games and had a fun time.

I wanted to kids to go to the cake walk. so we had to stand in line. Dallin didn't want to play the game, but once I told him about what he could win he was all for it. It was a good thing because he won. He picked out a plate of cupcakes and we went to play some more games. After we got done with the games, I still had a few tickets left over and we spent them on some popcorn for Isaac and some cotton candy for Dallin and we went home to share with Jeff, who stayed home with Kaden.

 Dallin waiting for the cake walk to begin

 Isaac waiting for the cake walk to begin

 Kaden at the Halloween Carnival before Jeff came and got him

On Sunday, we got together and carved the pumpkins. I was a little rushed for time so Jeff and I gutted the pumpkins while the kids were still playing. We then asked the boys what they wanted their pumpkins to look like. Isaac wanted pac-man and some of the dots, so his pumpkin was easy. Dallin wanted the ghost from pac-man and Jeff made him one, and then hung some eyes and a mouth. I made just a regular jack-o-lantern face on the rest of the pumpkins.

My boys with some of the pumpkins that we carved

As usual Spillman Technologies had their yearly trick or treat party for the kids at their work. The boys all dressed up. Isaac as Iron Man, Dallin as Darth Vadar, and Kaden as Tigger. Jeff and I decided that this year we would not dress up. Kaden had fun walking around the building and seeing everything. When the boys got a long stick of sugar, Kaden held on to that for the rest of the trip. He loves sticks. Dallin and Isaac had fun getting all the candy that they normally get.

The last thing that we did before trick or treating was we went to our local grocery store(yes, Stansbury Park now has its own grocery store) and we got candy from all of the departments, spent time playing on the bounce houses, decorating some cookies, and playing the pumpkin walk. Which was every 15 minutes the boys had to go and find a number to stand on and they would call out one or two numbers at a time and they would win a bag of goodies. We played twice and didn't win, then after we did all the rest of the stuff I let the kids play one more time, and Isaac won. He was so excited. 

Happy Birthday Isaac!!!

It is quite an experience to have 2 birthdays a week apart. I get done making cake and having it eaten and we have another birthday to make cake for. This year I made cupcakes for Kaden's birthday, which was on a wednesday, I made some more cupcakes for the family party we were having on Saturday, where we celebrated both Kaden and Isaac. My plan was then to make more cupcakes for Isaac's birthday on Tuesday, but we had enough left over that I didn't have to. Whoohooo!!!!!

Isaac is now 6 years old and he loves to go to kindergarten. He loves to get his homework done in the mornin so that he can play downstairs before he goes to school in the afternoon. In the summer I started reading a little with Isaac and he has come along way. He loves to read and if he turns in a paper, he is able to get a pizza ticket, which he absolutely loves to have.

Here are the pictures:

He is a wonderful boy

Happy Birthday Isaac!!!!

First Day of School!

It has finally come around again. The start of the new school year. This year Dallin will be in 3rd grade and Isaac will be in kindergarten. It will be nice to have two kids in school for at least half of the day. I will love to have that little bit of time alone with Kaden, so that we can play and not get interrupted as we sometimes do. It will also be nice to have some alone time when Kaden goes down for a nap.

Here are the first day of school pictures:

Isaac's graduation

This year I put Isaac in preschool at the kids park, a place in Stansbury Park. At first it was kind of frustrating to try and figure out when I was going to feed Kaden and take Isaac to school, but it turned out to be all right when I finally got Kaden on a schedule.

He had a lot of fun going to school and loved his teachers. One of the workers told me one day that she has only ever seen Isaac happy. I was amazed and he is sometimes a little whinny when he is at home. It just made me stop to think of just how happy a person Isaac is. He is a wonderful boy and tries his hardest to do what we ask. I need to remember this when he gets in one of his whinny times.

Here are some of the pictures that I took from that night. (you will be able to note that Isaac participated in everything and I didn't have to talk him into it. I was so proud)

Glasses!!

A month ago Isaac went in to the doctor to get his kindergarten exam. Well everything went well except that he didn't do too well on the eye exam part. So it was off to the optometrist to get his eyes tested. It turned out that Isaac needs glasses. He is farsighted (he can't see things well up close) and he has a little bit of astigmatism. So we bought glasses for him.

Isaac was awesome through out this whole thing. We went to both doctors on the same day and he was very happy at both. In fact, when I told him that we had to go and see an eye doctor because he probably needs glasses he got very excited. He was really happy when the doctor told him he can pick out a pair of glasses.

Isaac tried on about three pairs of glasses and then picked out a black plastic pair that only cost $9 for the frames, which made me really happy.

The only problem that Isaac had was when we left the optometrist's office and Isaac had to leave the glasses behind. He wanted to take them with him, even with me telling him that he had to wait because they needed to make them special just for him didn't make him happy.

But he has them now and loves them and I only have to remind him not to play with them as toys. In fact, Dalllin is a little jealous.

Here is the pictures:

Playing around with Photoshop Elements 8

Well a couple of weeks ago, I asked my sister for a bunch of blogs that she follows so that I could get inspired to do more projects. I love the sites and my looking up things today I came across a site that gives you free brushes for photoshop/photoshop elements to make new things. Ever since I got my photoshop elements program I have wanted to try and do some digital scrapbooking, but have never actually sat down and done so. I also didn't want to spend all the money for the pictures that I would need. So I found a site that gives you free stuff and I also found a place that gives you a tutorial on how to make your own. Also, in looking up how to add them to my program I found out that the help website for adobe gives you a lot of instruction on how to do this as well.

So I found a couple of things that I liked and the one I decided to use is not a brush, but a pattern (This fills the whole background of the file). I found some that had to do with space and since my boys love to learn about astronomy I thought it was fitting to use pictures of them. I found a poem to go on it and I love how it came out. So I thought I would share with you my new found skill that I can use my program for.

FYI: Click on the picture to make it larger and get a better look at it.

Swimming Lessons!!!

This year Jeff and I decided that it would be nice to get both of the boys into swimming lessons so that they could get less afraid of the water. We put Dallin into level 1 and Isaac into the preschool class. Both of the boys had a lot of fun in the water and they both learned a lot. They went Monday-Thursday for the first two weeks after school got out. The best thing is that if you sign up for swimming lessons at the Deseret Peak complex you get stay and play at regular hours for free. The boys loved it when we stayed and had a sack lunch while the lesson after us got over and then they could go and play in the water. Unfortunely it was really windy and cold some of the days so we didn't stay a lot of the time. At the end Dallin passed level 1, which to tell you the truth I didn't think that he would, and Isaac wasn't able to do everything that was required for him to pass, but he had a lot of fun playing in the water, so I call it a win.

Here are some of the pictures that I took on the first day. Sorry that they are so far away.

Dallin

Isaac

Easter and Spring Break

For Easter decorations this year I decided that I want to do some painted eggs. I was planning on painting them all myself, but when Dallin saw what I was going to do he wanted in. I decided that it wouldn't hurt anything to have a couple of eggs that were colored by a four and six year old. So I got the supplies, I went to the DI and spent $8 and got men shirts so the boys could get paint on them without hurting their clothes. The kids had a lot of fun coloring the eggs, Dallin more than Isaac. Isaac has decided that he doesn't like to get his hands dirty. He stopped painting his eggs early because his hands were all painted. He was more than happy to let me finish the eggs so he wouldn't get his hands dirty.

Here are the pictures:

Well this year for spring break I decided to go up to my parents so Jeff could get a little break from the kids and so he could work more on his smart phone project that he just got at work. It also happened that Easter was that Sunday so Jeff came up on the weekend. It snowed a lot while we were up there so a lot of my plans were halted, but the kids still had fun. On Wednesday we dyed eggs with my family. because we were going to have a lot of people there I went out and bought 3 dozen eggs, and then my sister brought a dozen and a half for her family, so we had a total of 60 eggs to dye. Dallin and Isaac were happy to do all the eggs, but after awhile I started to get frustrated with them so I said that it was time to take a break for a little while, so mommy can dye some eggs. It worked and they went off to play. Dallin came back later and did a couple of more. It was a fun day. Here are the pictures of the boys with their eggs:

On Saturday when Jeff was up my family went bowling. Dallin has wanted to go real bowling for awhile. He has only bowled on the Wii. Jeff wanted the kids to know how to correctly throw the bowl down the lane and he taught the boys. Isaac wasn't strong enough to hold the ball by himself so Jeff helped him a lot and he had a lot of fun just being able to through the ball down the lane. But he did great and his score was close to mine both games. After Dallin was shown how to throw the ball down he didn't want any help (typical Dallin) so his score was not what he wanted it to be, but he really improved the second game and was only a couple of pins down from Isaac, who had help from his Dad. Jeff and I had a little better games than the boys, but not as great as they once were. We have been playing the Wii too much.

On Easter Sunday, the boys spent most of the day playing with their glow stations that I got them (no I don't say the easter bunny brought them stuff. I never understood the easter bunny so I am not passing it on). After general conference got over we all went outside and we had a plastic egg hunt. Amanda, Debra, and James hid the eggs and then it was up to Dallin, Isaac, and Austin to find them. The boys had a lot of fun and Dallin was proud of the 24 eggs that he found. Isaac was a little disappointed with his 18, but it is a good number. Here are the pictures:

Quick update

Well, I was sitting at my computer filling out a survey from Dallin's school and I got bored with that (I thought I would be done with these when I graduated from college) so I decided that I would post some of the things that have happened.

Dallin has been doing really good at school. I took a book about time and money to church on sunday for him to do during sacrament meeting. He was doing all of the problems by himself without that much help from myself. Dallin has also started to draw picutres of robots and other things and then once then are drawn he then uses the paper to play with them. He is a wonderful boy and he getting out of the 'I rule the house' attitude, which is much to Jeff's and mine delight.

Isaac has been playing hard and watching movies. He loves to watch movies, he would watch them all day if I would let him (to tell you the truth some days I do) He definetely has my love to sit and watch movies. Isaac is right now learning how to write his letters. He is a master at tracing them in the books that I give him, but I need to bring up his confidence with writing the letters without tracing. We will get there eventually. He knows all of his letters and he can count to 10. I know what some of you are saying, he is 4 that is not that big of an accomplishment, but I am very proud to say that he has learned them and that I have taught him some stuff. I do not have that much confidence in teaching especially to my children, but I am trying to change that and Isaac is a wonderful student.

Jeff has been spending a lot of his time lately finishing a room in our basement for his computer. He got tired of coming to work on his computer and me following him and then turning on the TV, because I like to have noice when I am anywhere. So we stretched the budget over the last 5 months and Jeff was able to finish his room, with a little help from me. I think he likes to have a space that I am not trying to take over to decorate.

I have been using the last little bit of this time to just contemplate my life. Mostly I have been doing this because I am pregnant and don't really feel like getting off of the couch, but I feel that I am just not doing what I really want to do. I was able to go and do scoring for basketball, but I let it get to my head a little bit this year and so I need to take a step back, yes I am good at keeping score and I do know a lot of the rules of basketball, but that doesn't mean I know it all. There is a lot that I don't know. Also, my drive for making crafts kind of died and that leaves me with a feeling of what do I do with my life now. I do love to read, but the books that I am finding out I don't really like, but I keep reading them because that is just who I am. But it makes me think of what I really need to be doing. Mind you it could just be all of the hormones from being pregnant have completely changed my outlook on life, but I am not really sure if that is it. It will take some real reflecting on my life before I really know. 

One other thing that I would like to say at the end of this post. This week some things happened that made me start to think about how I feel about our country. I would like to say that I don't really agree with a lot of the things that are in the health care plan, but I do believe that the bad outweigh the good with the plan. I believe that our government should help individuals that cannot afford to pay for things in there life. Health insurance included. I also think that since we live in a place where the people choice who makes the laws that the people should help pay for these things. I know that we have to make sure that we don't let congress get out of hand, but it is our country and we should try to help those that cannot help themselves for what ever reason. There that is all that I will say on the matter.

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.

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.

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