Talent Show, Family Day, Random Craziness

I keep getting further behind.  Life has been busy lately, but nothing out of the ordinary which I am thankful for!!  Two weeks ago Sarah had her dance recital.  She was so excited to get ready for it.  She sat completely still to allow me to put makeup on her and to do her hair.  Too be honest I LOVED it, too.  I only have one little girl to play dress up with so I gotta make it count, right?! 

After her recital Aaron had picked up some flowers for her.  She LOVED them.  She wouldn't put them down for anything.  It was all I could do to get them out of her hands to put them in some water when we got home.  I will post her dance videos later.

See she still had a tight grip on the flowers when we got home.  What a silly girl!!

The other morning I was getting everyone ready for school when I felt a freezing cold breeze.  Sure enough Noah had put on mismatched snow boots and had gone outside to play--in his shorts pajamas no less.  I really think this kid is impervious to the cold since he is always sneaking outside wearing less than the bear minimum.  Hey at least his feet were warm even if nothing else on his body was.

It has snowed quite a bit this last month and then it got really cold so none of it has melted.  To put the snow in perspective it is about waist/chest height on Matthew.  I am hoping it warms up soon because it has been so cold.  Also having a north facing house is not a good thing in Utah.  After the first snowfall our driveway/walkway has frozen completely over and will not thaw for a long time.  We will be investing in snow melt for many more years to come, I'm afraid.

To try and have some fun with the cold weather blues I got out some plates and piled some baking soda on them.  I then filled up some mustard and ketchup bottles with colored vinegar.  The kids them got to squirt the colored vinegar on their baking soda covered plates and watch it foam up in different colors.

When that got old, I dumped out the vinegar and then made colored water inside the mustard and ketchup bottles and let the kids go outside to color the snow.  All of them (me included) had lots of fun.  Even Noah got into it.  Thanks to the cold temperatures our 'artwork' (and yes I use that term loosely) is still intact in the backyard.

The other night we got woken up about 1 am by some popping noises.  Upon closer inspection it was our neighbors house that was making the popping noises.  Our neighbor had put some hot coals in the trashcan and then they caught fire.  The fire quickly spread to their RV, truck and then to their house.  Unfortunately the popping sounds came from his ammunition collection inside the RV.  That made it hard for firefighters to access the fire since they didn't want to get hurt by the exploding rounds of ammo.  We watched the house burn for two hours before the firefighters got the blaze under control.

It is a really nice family, too.  I feel awful for them, but at least they all got out unharmed.  Now begins the 6-8 month process of rebuilding their house.

Saturday we wanted to have a fun family day.  We started out by heading down to the Seven Peaks fun center in Lehi.  The kids started the day out by rock climbing.  Even Sarah was big enough to try it out.

When all the kids got harnessed up, Noah burst into tears because he wanted to do it, too, along with his brothers and sister.  He was so upset by it he even broke down and gave Aaron lubs (loves)--which never happens since he is such a mommas boy.  Poor kid!!  Life's hard when you are only 2 years old!

The kids started out climbing, but Sarah and Matthew needed a little help.  Aaron went to help Matthew while the worker helped Sarah.  Daniel only made it up half way until he got too scared and came back down.

Once Josh started he didn't even look back.  He made it to the top twice.

After the climbing wall we went and played black light miniature golf.  I didn't get to play because I had to do some crowd control with the kids, but it was pretty funny watching them cheat ,oh I mean play. After miniature golf I took Sarah and Noah over to the kiddie play land while Aaron took the three older boys to play laser tag.  They had lots of fun.

After that we headed down to the BYU basketball game.  I didn't think we would last too long there since our kids usually get ants in their pants after a few minutes, but surprisingly enough they lasted through the entire game.  Here's the view from where our seats were:

The game didn't get over until after 9 pm so we didn't get home until after 11.  Let me just say church was not too much fun the next day with five horribly grumpy kids!!

The last month and a half Matthew has been needing a medication change.  We had visited the psychiatrist in November, but the new medication she wanted to put him on was horribly expensive.  However, we were changing insurances on January 12th to an insurance that would pay for most of the medication.  The only hard part was waiting until then to start him on it.  Just as an example a few weeks ago as we were walking out the door to go to church, Matthew had a melt down of all meltdowns.  I honestly mean it was HUGE.  It has been a LONG time since I have seen one that bad.  Seeing as Aaron had to teach Elder's Quorum that day and I only to to go to primary, I was deemed the one to stay home with him because Matthew was in no way fit to go to church.  Unfortunately since it was so last minute Aaron had to find the Primary President and tell her that I wasn't going to be there and try to explain the reason why.  I hate being flaky, but this time I, unfortunately, didn't have a choice!  Aaron got the easy part of wrestling with four kids during church.  I had the hard part of having my son yell and scream at me for over 90 minutes straight and then start trying to hit me.  It was not pretty, but what can you do?  Luckily, he finally calmed down.  Thankfully January 12th came and we were able to start the new medicine.  Phew!!  Most times Matthew is not hard to be around, but there a few times where I just want to pull out my hair.  Anyway, things are going much smoother now we have done some medication adjustments.  The only down side is we have to take him to get his labs drawn soon.....sigh.  I am not looking forward to that!!  Hopefully things stay calm and smooth for a long time!

Lately I have been trying to get Sarah caught up on her immunizations.  I delayed her immunizations until she was older so now we get to play catch up.  I took her in last week where she got 4 shots in one visit.  She was NOT happy with me.  Luckily she took them in stride.  However, she got up the next day and gingerly walked out of her room over to me to tell me that her band aids were hurting.  It was so sad.  The next few days she was sick with a fever and achiness due to the shots.  She only has two more visits and then she will be all caught up.

My nursing license expires at the end of this month so 'I finally completed my continuing education and renewed my license today.  I am now legal to practice as an RN for the next two years.  **Sigh** some day I want to actually go back to work, but until then I will try to use my nursing skills in my home where they are needed more often than I care to admit with my crazy family.

Last week all the 4th grade classes at Josh's school held a talent show.  Now Josh has never met a talent show he didn't like.  I cringe every time I hear there will be a talent show because Josh always wants to participate doing something he has never done before.  Time and time again I have explained to him that the purpose of a talent show is to display the talents you have learned instead of the talents you might have but have never tried them out before in front of unknowingly captive audience without a choice in what they get to see.  This time he wanted to make up a dance to perform to some song.  After repeatedly trying to convince him to play the piano (amongst beating my head against the wall) he finally decided that he'd play the piano.  Well the talent show day came.  That's when I got an alarming phone call from the school.  Have I ever mentioned that  I HATE getting calls from the school?!  Anyway, Josh had forgotten his music and needed it ASAP!  Looking at my sorry state of severe bedhead and gross pajamas I told him that I would only bring his music if he promised he would watch for me and come out and grab it when I pulled in so I wouldn't have to get out of my car.  So I pulled up and waited and waited and waited and Josh never came outside of the school.  I reluctantly put the car in park and got out to walk inside to find Josh.  When I finally found him inside he had the audacity to ask me, "Where have you been I have been waiting for you!!"  I had to count to 10 slowly so I wouldn't throttle the kid!!  Anyway, I turned around and came outside and got back into the car and came home.  When I walked in the house that's when I noticed Josh's forgotten lunch box sitting on the counter.   I had to count to 10 again slowly before I blew my top.  The things moms do for their kids!!!  I had to return back to the school to give him his lunchbox so he could actually have a lunch.  Good thing I love my kids!! Josh did say the talent show went great so that's good.

So all in all we are going good so far this year.  Hopefully things stay that way!

Christmas, BINGO, Pass, Dance, Basketball

I have been slacking the past few weeks so here's my attempt to catch our Blog up to date.  The Saturday before Christmas we decided to take a trip down to Salt Lake to see Temple Square and the New City Creek Mall.  We stopped by the City Creek Mall first and walked around for a bit.  We quickly decided that was not a good idea since it was the last Saturday before Christmas--the place was PACKED!!!  We did go in a few stores one of them being the Apple Store.  The kids excitedly ran over and immediately started playing on the i-pads.  They knew exactly what to do with them, too--that's the amazing thing.  

 We went over and took a peek at the new candy windows they started doing again this year.  They were nice, but they don't compare to what ZCMI did years and years ago.  However, the kids thought they were pretty nice.

 We went over to the Church History Museum and checked it out.  They were pretty busy there, too.  However, there was a guy playing whatever instrument he has in his lap and the kids were pretty fascinated by it.  The guy even asked Josh to help him sing some Christmas songs that he played.  Josh was more than happy to do that and so were the rest of the kids.

This is what Noah thought of the whole museum:

After we toured the whole museum they had a kid section where they had different activities they could do.  Aaron and I sat down and let them do what they wanted as long as we could keep an eye on them.  After a few minutes I couldn't see Josh anymore so I wandered around until I found him.  He had put on some Spanish clothes and was dancing along to a video not caring if anyone saw.  Nice, Josh.....get jiggy with it!!

 They had a real size statue of Moroni the kids thought was interesting.  When you see it on the temple it doesn't seem like it would be this big!

 When we had had enough of the Church history Museum we went to leave only to find that Daniel had gotten tired of carrying his coat around and just dropped it where ever.  I sat with all the kids while Aaron took Daniel to try and find it.  Lucky for Daniel they did find it....grrrrrr.  Hopefully, Daniel learned never to do that again!

We wandered over the grounds of Temple Square to look at the pretty lights.  We even stopped by the fountain where Aaron proposed to me almost 13 years ago.  It's crazy how much life can change in 13 years and five kids later!

 For Christmas Eve we had everyone over at our house for a big ham dinner.  It was really yummy and nice to visit with everyone.  The kids had fun with their cousins.  We did miss my sister Jennifer and her family who couldn't come in from Ohio, though.  Afterward the kids got to open up their token Christmas Eve pajama present.  They were excited to finally be able to open something.

Crazy enough this year I decided to try and make pajama pants for everyone.  I got some cheap fabric on Black Friday and attempted sewing all the pants this year.  It ended up being easier than I thought it would be except on my pair of pants--my sewing machine died right in the middle of sewing them--grrrrr.  I ended up taking my machine apart to see what the problem was.  I couldn't see anything so I put it back together and it worked (not very well, though) long enough so I could finish my pants.  Here we all are in our matching jammies:

After opening the presents we went out and drove around looking at Christmas lights.  As you can see Noah was just super excited about going out and getting in a freezing cold car:  

Nice Christmas cheer, buddy.

When we got back from looking at the lights we had some hot chocolate and then tried to put the kids to bed.  We squeezed all the kids in the two main floor bedrooms to sleep for the night.  That way we could hear if anyone tried to sneak out--which they didn't.  I tried to split them up by putting Noah and Sarah in one room and the three older boys in the other.  However, after about 15 minutes of screaming that arrangement did not seem to be working out.  Surprising enough it was Noah and Sarah that were screaming.  Noah wouldn't leave Sarah alone which was making her pretty mad so I ended up sending Sarah to sleep in the other room with all the boys while Noah had his own room.  That worked a lot better because the screaming stopped.  The next morning at 6 am the kids were excited to see what Santa had brought them.  We had them wait around the corner in the hall until we were ready for them.  Then we said, "Mark, set, go!" and they were off:

 

Noah was still a little groggy so he needed 'wubs' (loves) for a few minutes until he could fully wake up.

 Everyone was excited to see what they got.

 Daniel wanted help with all his presents so he brought them all over to G&G T.

 Matthew finally got his train set.  He got help from G&G T to set it up.  He was so excited!

 Here's the aftermath of Christmas:

 It was a HUGE mess to clean up!!  Later that day when all the festivities were over, we had our nice family traditional Christmas dinner at Burger King.  I figured I spent all of Christmas Eve cooking I didn't want to do the same on Christmas day so we went to the only place that was open and affordable.  We have done this for years and love it.  I guess if it weren't for low class we'd have no class at all, right?!

After Christmas we ended up needing to get Matthew and Daniel some new shoes since Daniel and Matthew had worn holes clear through their school shoes.  Daniel used the toes of his shoes as his bike breaks (wearing holes through the tops of them) and Matthew drags his feet when he walks so he had holes in his heels.  After getting the new shoes, Grandpa T tried Matthew's shoes on and they fit him crazy enough. Matthew is a size 8!  Good grief the kid is only 11 years old.  I guess he is following in Aaron's footsteps!  It will be interesting to see how tall he is going to get.

 While we were down visiting G&G T, Grandpa T took Matthew out to help him snow blow since it had snowed quite a bit.  Matthew was beyond ecstatic!!  Helping Grandpa T with anything that you can turn on makes his day anytime!!

 Later on that evening it was our Bingo Family Pigout tradition.  My own Grandpa Terry (the kids Great Grandpa Terry's) birthday is on January 1st so we celebrate his birthday every year with a big extended family dinner and a raging game of  BINGO.  We have done this every year since I can even remember.  Unfortunately my Grandpa Terry (the kids' Great Grandpa) was not able to attend due to his deteriorating health.  He did turn 93 years old on January 1st.  However, since he really enjoyed this tradition we continue to do it and it is fun.  My kids really look forward to it every year.

 Matthew was Grandpa T's helper whether he wanted a helper or not.  Matthew was stuck to his side ALL NIGHT LONG.  We got lots of gifts that we will be able to 'regift' next year--that's part of the fun is seeing all the gifts that get 'regifted' every year.  We've had a few macrame going around for quite a few years.

New Years Eve we had a family over to celebrate the New Year.  We had a yummy dinner.  Then the adults played games while the kids played with each other and watched movies.  It was lots of fun!  Thanks Einzingers!!  You guys are fun!!

 For New Years Day we went down to Trafalga to try out our Pass of All Passes.  It was lots of fun.  They had a 4 D theater that we tried out.  It was a 3D movie that the seat moved along with the ride.  You had 6 different movies to choose from.  Not thinking it through, I chose the Haunted Mine movie first.  What a BIG mistake!!  Good thing we were the only ones in the theater because Noah started screaming at the beginning of the movie because he was scared.  Sarah was screaming, "I DON'T LIKE THIS MOVIE!!" through the whole thing.  I couldn't do anything about it because we were all seat belted in until the 8 minute movie was over.  Finally when the movie ended Matthew, Sarah and Noah were more than ready to get out of the theater.   Matthew refused to try it out ever again.  Oh well you win some you lose some.  If I had to choose again I would have chosen the happy aquarium movie.  Oh well, too bad I can't un-traumatize my kids.  IF we do get them to try it out again I think they will need some major bribery....

 After the theater we went over to try glow in the dark miniature golf.  There may or may not have been some major cheating going on, but at least everyone had fun.  About two holes into the game Aaron and I gave up even try to play because it took our full attention for crowd control with all five kids.  Good thing our kids were the only ones on the coarse!!

As you can see Noah was a major cheating offender, but he was being a 'big boy' just like his brothers:

It was a fun New Year's family Day.

Daniel has been doing basketball for the past two months.  He has fun with it.

For doing Jr. Jazz basketball he got two tickets to see a Jazz basketball game in Salt Lake this past Monday.  It was fun Daddy/son bonding time.

 

Sarah had her dance recital rehearsal last Friday.  She was so excited to get dressed in her costume and get make up put on.  She thought she was pretty fancy.  Tonight is the real recital so it will be interesting to see how much she has learned from last time which was about 8 months ago.

 Noah's learning how to work the system.  I went to put him to bed the other night.  As soon as I picked him up he said, "No bed.  I need wubs for just a minute."  How can you refuse that?!  The only bad thing was is every time I stood up to take him to bed he kept saying the same thing, "No bed.  I need wubs for just a minute."  The next night he tried a different ploy.  When I said it was time for bed he went and got his pillow pet and blankee and set his bed up on the coffee table in the middle of the family room.  I guess he didn't want to miss any of the action by going to bed in his actual bed.  What a crazy kid!

In the past three weeks we have had quite the variety of colds pass through our house as well as a nice round of pink eye.  It has been lovely.  Aaron brought the cold home right before Christmas and 'shared the wealth' being the nice guy that he is.  I got it next and so did the kids.  However, the kids got over it, but I still have it and it got really worse two days ago.  My ears started aching something fierce so I finally got an appointment with the doctor to discover double ear infections and a sinus infection.  I got started on some antibiotics so hopefully I will be feeling better soon.  Sickness is the worst part of winter--I swear!!  Hopefully, I will get better soon so we can have a happy and healthy New Year!!  All I can say is I am thankful our Flex Spending Account started over January 1st!!