April Dessert

I was assigned the task of bringing dessert to Sunday dinner. I made some yummy brownies and bought some ice cream to go on top. Yum-o! I thought it would be fun to have the kids decorate their own cookies, so we bought a kit at the store. We had a ball!

Everyone got a duck shaped cookie and a little cheese ball knife to spread frosting. Then the fun times began!

Whoa Tan, that's like an inch of frosting!Camden is shocked.

Hey, where did the frosting go?

When we ran out of yelow frosting I opened up the frosting to the brownies!

A very effective strategy to eat only frosting and no cookie!

Bryce's Birthday

So my cute hubby turned 28 last month and we're officially in that 6 week period of every year where is older that I am! It's sure a short period of time, I have to rub it in a little! Mama H always makes his favorite foods for his birthday. This year it was ham, twice baked potatoes and strawberry shortcake. Yum-o!

I love this picture of Bryce and Bella. She sure is a "cheeser!"
Bryce and Cam, check out that yummy dessert!Cute cousins all in their jammies.
Happy Birthday Baby, I love you so much.

PS. Thanks to everyone who came to our house for Bryce's party. We had a great time and feel very blessed to have such great friends. We need to do it again because I want to play Crud, as long as I don't have to go after Travis! As promised the video of Kendra and Hailey cleaning my floor! Thanks moms for letting Greg do it one more time so I could get it on video.

Paralympic Event

A couple of weeks ago I was invited to participate in a Paralympic experience put on by Hartford Life. I was very excited to attend this event. It was everything I hoped it would be and more.

The day started out with sled hockey. I was strapped into a sled complete with helmet, neck guard, and two ice picks/hockey sticks to propel on the ice and pass the puck. We were given a couple of minutes to practice before participating in a little friendly competition! During warm-up I have never laughed so hard in my life. I literally thought I was going to pee my pants when my co-worker Holly flipped her sled on it's side and couldn't get up. I don't think I stopped laughing until it happened to me and I was stuck! We lost our first game and won the second (no thanks to anything I did). I was truly amazed by the 3 actual sled hockey athletes that were there. What they do is amazing.

Next we headed inside for some Paralympic trivia and then out for some cross country skiing. Before this I had never cross country skied in my life. It was a good thing that my team's leader was a Paralympic cross country skiier! After a brief crash course in cross country skiing we took a tour of the lap we would be skiing as part of the relay. I thought it would just be a little loop, oh no it was a huge loop complete with an uphill section and a downhill section. I was totally winded after the "warm-up" lap and then told I was only going to get to use 1 pole for the real thing. All I can say is that I made it through my lap of the relay without collapsing and my team captain made up for my pathetic time! All in all it was an incredible day and a wonderful experience.

Cyclops Cat

Ever had a project that didn't turn out like the picture on the box? We've all been there right? Meet Cyclops Cat, affectionately referred to as CC. On one of my many trips to Michaels I picked up a "Cuddly Pom Kit" which makes one cuddly cat, or so I thought! I thought it would be fun for our neighbor Erin to do while she was over at our house. The kit says a "fun and easy project" ages 7 and up. Perfect, I thought, because Erin is 7, plus she loves cats. About the only "easy" think about the project was getting the box open. We quickly determined that regular Elmer's glue wasn't working, so we switched to instant adhesive gel, which is not suitable for children 7 and up! We did end up having a pretty good time putting it together. We were laughing so hard while trying not to glue our fingers together at the same time!
The end result, looks just like the box right? Oh, we got the name Cyslops Cat because the kit only came with one eye. Either that or we lost the other one, who knows! I have to admit: Fun, yes Easy, absolutely not! It doesn't advertise that it is cute, just cuddly, so I can agree with that!

Update & Random Pics

I figured that it has been a while since I last blogged, but January and February are really slow months it seems. The crazy busy time around Thanksgiving and Christmas is over and it's time to kick back and relax. I thought I would put together some random thoughts and give everyone an update on what we have been up to.

Bryce and I have officially gotten on Face book, finally. I mean, my grandmother was Face book before me, literally. Way to go Nana! Although, it must have skipped a generation because I still don't think my mom has accepted me as a friend yet. Mom, hello, people are starting to talk! My wonderful husband found me a Wii Fit, yeah! Bryce's grandma taught me how to knit right around Christmas and now I am totally obsessed. Laugh all you want, my scarves are totally amazing.

Recently the fam got together and took over our favorite Chinese food place (other than PF Changs) Enjoy, where a family of 5 can eat for $16. Seriously, they're on 7800 South in good old West Jordan.

Bryce's Mom and Dad put together little Valentine's Day gift bag for the kids filled with lots of goodies.

So, funny story. From her Valentine's goodie bag, Bella hands me her candy hearts to open. I open them, give them back to her and go about my business taking pictures, etc. I turn around to find her sitting behind the kitchen table eating the candy hearts. I snap a couple of photos because she is so cute and then I notice that she is shoving them into her mouth as fast as she can! So I hurry and try to take them away from her so we doesn't choke. She of course starts screaming at me. After I pry them out of her hands, seriously she didn't want to give them up, she is bawling. So I pick her up and give her a hug, I want to keep my "cool aunt" status after all, and count that she has 6 candy hearts in her mouth! From then on, the candy hearts were rationed.

She eventually forgave me!

Merry Christmas

Well, it has officially been forever since I have blogged. We had great Christmas and New Year's holidays spent with family and friends. We are very blessed to have wonderful families and friends that I consider our chosen family. My New Year's resolution is to take more pictures (along with losing 10 pounds). Christmas is for the kids right, which might explain why Bryce and I do not have a single picture of us on Christmas! We also have no pictures of opening gifts at my mom's house or any adults at Bryce's parent's house. Seriously, and we did so good last year. What happened?
When I was in Chicago (the third time I believe last year) I bought Easton a Bears jersey, Devin Hester to be exact. Cam already had one, so we picked him up a Ute jersey. They were both so happy. Easton asked me if he could wear his everyday and sleep in it every night. I told him he could, but he might want his mom to wash it every once in a while!

Addy was so funny at Christmas, she was really excited to open presents. We got her a cute outfit for summer. can't wait to see it. Will it get warm already?

Bella didn't want anyone touching her gifts and it didn't matter if she was currently playing with them or not! We got her a cute summer outfit also, seriously ready for it to warm up!

My favorite Christmas picture, Tan as Spiderman in his Spiderman jammies. We got Tan a D-Will jersey, which he had asked Santa for. See, I told you I know Santa, better be on your best behavior for next year kids!

I hope everyone had great Christmas and New Year's holidays. Here's to a great 2009!

Disneyland

One of the many reasons I am still not done with my Christmas shopping this year is because we headed out on a fun-filled family vacation to Disneyland December 10-14. Nothing quite like 5 days at Disney with 5 kids 5 and under! The first couple of days we were there it was so warm. I dusted off my capri's and sleeveless shirts! The last couple days were colder, but nothing like the blizzard we came home to.
If anyone knows the magic secret to make 5 kids look at the camera simutaneously and smile, I would love to know. Seriously, call me and let me know!
Me and my buddies Easton and Cam who produced some of my favorite quotes of the trip. Easton: "Am I stuck with Ace again, I'm kidding!" "Can I use your bathroom, Cam is dropping it like it's hot in ours?" "Tanner, what brings you here?"

Camden calls me on the hotel room phone: "Ace, can I come over to your hotel?" I say sure. Then click, followed by a knock on the door.

The Christmas parade at Disney is amazing. We found our seats at least an hour before the parade as we learned from the night before that a half an hour isn't early enough! To kill the time Bryce's mom bought the kids suckers, which was a huge mess and really funny all at the same time.

Merry Christmas!