Mute...

For the past three days I have become grateful for something that we take for granted... the ability to speak. My gratitude is because... I can't! I mean truly I try to talk and all that comes out is a whisper... (and every once in a while an odd squeek). Any of you out there that think "My kids don't even hear me..." Ought to try having no voice at all. It really ticks ya off when you are "yelling" at your kids (in a whisper) and they are looking at you like "Chill out Mom, but we have NO idea what you are saying."

I need a bell... or a whistle!

Here are a few things that I have discovered...

1 - My girls are great secretaries for me. A phone conversations goes like this at our house... "Hi, is your mom there?"

"Yes she is, but she can't talk right now, like literally... could I give her a message."

That part hasn't been half bad, especially because Saturday, Tayler saved me from telling 3 people that "I was not taking any other custom orders, but that I still have stuff in the basement." I hate doing that, everyone sounds so disappointed... so maybe there are some perks to losing your voice!

2 - It wasn't so bad yesterday at church, I mean whispering there seems totally appropriate. But when someone calls to you from far away in the mall and you just wave and mouth a "Hello", one comes across as "not being such a good friend."

3 - Cute little Jadyn likes to whisper like me, the first morning when I was "whispering". She whispered back, "Oh... Daddy sleepy?" I shook my head no, she whispered with a confused face, "Mommy sleepy?" Now she thinks it is pretty funny to whisper with me.

4 - There is something about a whispering person that makes others think they need to whisper too. Then they catch themselves and say, "why am I whispering?"

5- Kids sometimes do hear things... several times Tayler or Saige will run into where I am and say, "were you calling us Mom." I whisper to them, "do you think you would actually have heard this whisper two floors down?" They chuckle and ran back to playing... I really do have good girls!

... and just in case you were wondering... I will be at the USU/Utah Game tonight cheering my heart out... but if you can't hear me... you now know why!

GO AGGIES!!

Christmas in Zarahemla...

Two weeks ago we had our "Ward Party"...

As Ward Activities Chairman, I, and my small but fantastic committee of three, Shane, Aleece and Ron (and Ron's fabulous wife Nancy (Shane's cousin) who is not even on our committee but might as well be!) stressed about the perfect Christmas Party. Last year's event was a fabulous success. I had taken pictures the whole year of all our activities, got other pictures from neighborhood parties, YM/YW activities, Primary stuff etc. and made a 1/2 hour video set to music. It was fun to reminisce about all the things we had done together in our ward that year. (Did I mention that I love our ward?) This year when it came time to plan... we drew a blank! So we starting searching and finally decided on "A Christmas in Zarahemla". Much thought (and prayer) later, this years' event turned out just as fantastic.

I found a perfectly written program... (if you come across this blog and are looking to do the same in your ward... go to "Yahoo Groups" - then join "LDS Activities" tons of information for all kinds of activities ), willing (not necessarily eager :)) ward members to participate in that program, the Cardon's who had FABULOUS props in their basement from a similar event years ago... it wouldn't have been the same without that! Helpful YW to help us serve (and sing), lots of sweet ladies to help prepare food, people there to help us clean up without even being asked! Aleece who took FANTASTIC pictures! And over 200 people that attended that night, More than half of which came in costumes of the time.

I thought it was a Night to Remember!

A Night to Remember what having a ward family is all about...

A Night to Remember how important friendships are...

A Night to Remember what service truly means...

A Night to Remember God's hand in our accomplishments...

A Night to Remember what it would have been like for people in Zarahemla.

A Night to Remember what Christmas is truly about... Jesus Christ coming to this world as a little baby to save us all.

Because of these things it was a Night I will never forget!

Merry Christmas!!

It's that time of year again... time for sending out Christmas Cards. I will admit that this year I feel like a complete slacker... don't get me wrong I'm still sending out cards, in fact the last will go in the mail today. But somehow I feel like I cheated! This year I did what so many other people do, I sent a generic Christmas card with no information about our year... no fun newsletter... or fancy card that took an entire week to make. Just a picture... that looks like this...

My reasoning for this laziness?

1 - Since April I have been blogging about everything our family has done. I figure that half of my friends/family already see this blog... so what more can I say! (and the other half can read as much as they would like! :))

2 - I am working on "Simplifying". That is not a word I know well... I am not a "simplifier". I do lots of "simplify" vinyl for people... but I don't put it in my own home... because it would cause me guilt since I know I should be... but I'm just not "simplified". So I am taking a fellow bloggers' advise and "simplifying SOMETHING." This month it was Christmas Cards! (And not cooking dinner! J/K I cook dinner... sometimes...)

By next Christmas I may be so "Simplified" that I don't even send a generic card... and if I feel no guilt about that... then I will be truly "Simplified!"

All kidding aside... this year has been fabulous we have had so many fun adventures together as a family. Lots of vacations come to mind... January started out with a 7 day Disney Cruise to the Caribbean with our family and my Mom and Dad (Thanks Mom and Dad - that was the best! And so are you!) In June we spent a week at Island Park/Yellowstone with our good friends the Carlsen's. Throughout the summer we spent a few fun weekends at my parents condo @ Bear Lake. And then in October we surprised the kids and drove to Disneyland. Shane had more travels than us of course working on LDS Temples in Villa Hermosa Mexico, Sydney Australia, and lots throughout Utah and Idaho, and then he will round out 2008 in Guadalahara Mexico.

The girls are growing and learning and entertaining us with all of their adventures and experiences. And we are loving our busy, crazy, sometimes overwhelming life.

We are so grateful for our health, for good friends, for fantastic families and most especially for our Saviour Jesus Christ... whose birth we celebrate this beautiful time of year. We wish each of you a very Merry Christmas and a fabulous 2009!!

Merry Christmas!!

8 things tag

I've been tagged by Kimi :)...

8 Shows I Watch:

1. Survivor
2. The Biggest Loser
3. The Amazing Race
4. Grey's Anatomy
5. CSI
6. Law and Order
7. Channel 5's 10 o'clock News
8. What not to Wear
(all on DVR - after the kids go to bed... Not all in one night! :) )

8 Restaurants I Love:

1. Firehouse
2. Fredricos
3. PF Chang's
4. El Sol
5. Olive Garden
6. Texas Roadhouse
7. Cafe Sabor
8. Chilis

8 Things I Did Yesterday:

1. Answered the door in my robe... straight from the shower. (thanks Shane for the heads-up that the plumber was coming at the crack of dawn.)
2. Took Saige to the dentist to have a filling and 2 teeth pulled.
3. Picked up pictures @ Sam's Club.
4. Shopped on line for Christmas.
5. Worked on vinyl for 4 people...
6. Helped Tayler with her Pre-Algebra and helped Kenna make a "tree" for Kindergarten.
7. I made cookies (and dinner.)
8. Cleaned out five bathroom sink "drains". I'm talking full on take the pipes apart and clean the disgusting globs of goo out. SICKO!
I also cleaned out my entire pantry... looking for one (hopefully not more :() menacing beasts... yes I had LOTS of mouse poop on the shelves in my pantry. It was time to purge all opened packages and clear it all out. (Except I was scared to death to move stuff from the back... what if a ferocious mouse jumped out from its hiding spot... pounced on my face and waged an all out war with me... I would have just fallen backwards, screamed, put my hands in the air and yelled "DEFEAT"!) That's why we made it our FHE activity... (Family fun at its BEST!) Only the girls helped at first, (it was similar to the fishing videos...) so we enlisted Shane, "our fearless mouse hunter"! An hour in my kitchen looked like this...
NO more poop... but no mouse either... GRRR. (Although 3 hours later I had a fantastic looking, Clorox smelling, perfectly organized pantry :)!)

8 Things I Look Forward to:

1. Getting rid of that stupid mouse
2. Christmas
3. Having the girls home for Christmas Break
4. Playing spades with Jeff and Kimi! :)
5. Turning OFF my vinyl machine for the rest of the month!
6. Seeing my girls faces on Christmas morning.
7. Sunday Naps
8. Going on our cruise in January!

8 Wishes:

1. That we will be blessed with another precious baby in our family.
2. That I had an extra hour our two in the day.
3. That the world wasn't so scary!
4. That Barrack Obama wasn't the next president :)
5. That it wasn't so cold outside. And that there wasn't ice on the sidewalks (this morning Kenna was running to the bus stop... with her hands in her pockets... she slipped... hard... and her check tells the story!)
6. That my family will always be healthy and happy
7. That my girls will make good choices.
8. That my girls wouldn't grow so fast.

8 People I tag:

Danae
Angela C.
Corynn
Megan
My Daddy
Shelly
Christie
DeeAnn

Dancing Elves...

Our family has been busy putting together some numbers for your viewing pleasure... Prepare to be amazed! (Poor Jadyn couldn't catch all the moves, that's why she didn't make it into our performances.)

Push pause on the music bar before you start...

Let's do the Charleston!

Send your own ElfYourself eCards

Country Elfs...

Send your own ElfYourself eCards

Disco Elfs...

Send your own ElfYourself eCards

The Tree...

Like many people our day after Thanksgiving tradition is going to get our Christmas Tree. (Our other tradition is trying to NOT go to one store on that day... But a big thanks to my "die-hard shopper" sister-in-law Becky who beat innocent people down to get a few great things for me anyway... YOU ROCK! )

In our early years of marriage we always went to a tree farm on the Idaho border and had someone else "cut" our tree down. It was easy to find that perfect tree walking up and down aisles and aisles of them But then we discovered we could go to the mountains by OURSELVES and cut down trees there. Thus our day after Thanksgiving tradition...

We have a tall ceiling and we don't want a big bushy tree, but some years we have had what some refer to as "the tallest Charlie Brown tree they have ever seen." They lack that bushiness, we might say... So this year we headed to Montpelier to find a "tall, bushy tree". I always think that snowmobiling through the mountains looking for a tree will be a fabulous family event, which for the most part it is, but each year one (or more) child is bawling because their boots don't fit (1st snow event of the year...), their gloves are falling off, and they need a tissue. (Bawling doesn't help that last one any!) Kenna has been that child for the past three years. She is not a snow girl... nor does she like the cold at all. Even at swimming pools she just hangs out in the hot tub... I guess she's like me! :) So looking for a tree in the middle of the forest is not her favorite thing! (Plus I don't think she liked that she was on MY 4-wheeler, I tipped us last year on our "tree excursion", she held on TIGHT this year.)

Everyone else was happy though, even Poor Jadyn was a good sport considering she looked like the Christmas Story guy. Her snowsuit was too small and she kept falling over... without any bend in her body... just a "timber" right on her face... with her arms still out to the sides! She would just lift her head and call "Daaaaad, Hep". (Good thing she had her helmet on :))

Finding a tree is not as easy as it seems. Trees... aren't perfect. They look good from one side and not so good from others. We putter around on our 4 -wheelers getting off every once in a while to check some out. I found lots that looked great, but I was informed over and over by Shane that, "Those are way too tall... that's illegal" (grumpily by the end.) You can bet he drove all the way home at the exact speed limit... because he is REALLY worried about being LEGAL!! hahaha :) We finally decided on one (and another for Missy and Andy) after HOURS of looking and cut it down. It looked fabulous when it was with all of it's other little "tree friends" but alone... well not quite the same! The front half was OK, but the back... what back? Our tree is now nicely set FLAT against the wall! (But admittedly bushier than last year... if only by a little.) I am sure that our girls will always remember our "tree adventures", they are totally worth it in the end. And our trees are totally us! Not decorated up all fancy, but with ornaments made specially for us by our sweet little girls each year, "souvenir ornaments" from places we have traveled, ornaments from a "handmade ornament exchange" that I was in for years. A hodge podge of all sorts of memories. I love to see "fancy" decorated trees... but this is how I want us to celebrate Christmas... Charlie Brownish or not!

And the final product... tall... but not bushy!

Tree Permit... $10

Gas to Montpelier... (much less than 2 months ago!)

6 hours together in the truck and forest... PRICELESS!!!!

Thanksgiving...

Thanksgiving, what a great day to be together as a family and to think about our blessings. When we had a discussion in our little family about "what we are thankful for." I summed mine up in "ease of life." What a fabulous time to live on the earth, our conveniences and comforts were not even a "dream" for so many before us, and yet we often times take those comforts for granted. We truly are blessed to live at this time... and I hope that I recognize that everyday!

One of those comforts of life is good food... in a comfortable warm home... Our family tradition is having Thanksgiving at my parents house. We all bring something as per my mother’s assignment. And the menu is always the same… so the recipes are given to us by my fabulous cook of a mother… She taught me all she could, "that is when I wasn't hiding" (according to her :)) Obviously I missed out on a few lessons... One of those was definitely the art of bread making... (Thank Heavens for comforts like "Great Harvest"!) Actually I thought that was about all I missed, but I must have missed the "jello" lesson too! This Thanksgiving I was assigned “Pretzel Salad”, a fairly basic recipe with a pretzel crust, cream cheese center and raspberry jello top. The crust and cream cheese layers were no problem, so the jello part should not have been either. The recipe I copied from my mom called for 2 cups of water - maybe 3 (that confused me right there). It was 1 AM (after playing a killer game of settlers online with Kimi, Jeff and Shane). So I couldn’t call my knowledgeable mother to clarify. So I mixed up the jello in the 2 cups of water. (plus a little more?) I swear I stirred it for like 5 min. it wouldn’t fully dissolve, but I poured in on anyway and went to bed. When I woke up Thanksgiving morning I checked out my two pans of yumminess and found no beauty… just a disgusting mess. Apparently I hadn’t sealed the edges of my cream cheese so the jello went right below, and hadn’t set up. I was confused, I mean I can read a recipe and it said nothing about sealing the edges but oh well, I decided to mix up yet another batch of jello, and hope I could salvage it. (I also tried desperately to seal up the edges). A few hours later it was time to head to dinner, with my flop of a recipe, Driving there we had to take every curve as slow as possible because both pans were sloshing all over. (Not an indication of a great jello dish!) So I walk in and say to my mother… “what happened here mom, please don’t assign me this again!” She looks at it and says, “Hmmmm, I have no idea, it doesn’t look like the jello dissolved?”. I reply with… “well, how long are you supposed to stir jello to get it to dissolve? I stirred it for like 10 min., I’ve never done it in cold water before.” My mom’s face told it all, I reply with, “I didn’t boil the darn water.” (But actually I didn’t say darn.) I made 3 batches of jello in cold water. FYI... for jello to set in NEEDS to be cooked. BRILLIANT! (In my defense it said NOTHING about boiling water – yes most people with half a brain would have thought that, but apparently I’m not like MOST people!) Actually, minus the soggy pretzels and the runny jello… it didn’t taste half bad, but then we were just eating the cream cheese/sugar/cool whip drenched in gelatin! I’m guessing that next year I won’t be assigned the pretzel salad. (Although just for a good laugh it might be my assignment for the rest of my life!) The rest of the meal was fab, we washed lots of my “contribution” down the drain though… (and we have plenty of leftovers of in our fridge, so come on over! :) ) I tell that story to make other people feel better about themselves. Someone recently said to me, "what can't you do?" Well here you go... I can't make jello, or bread, or rolls and I definitely can't jump canals, (I also can't hold small animals without freaking out!)... so now everyone who can do those things should feel better about themselves! See there is ALWAYS something to be Grateful for!!!

(I always forget to take pictures of the actual meal... I guess I have food as a higher priority than pictures... that is HIGH! Luckily Tayler took some of her and her cousins!)

Jordan and Paige
Cousin Fun
Paige and Kenna
Poppa and Grayson

...after a little turkey induced nap… Paige, Tara and Steve came over to our house for a game of hokie six, and cold stone ice cream “Falslev style” (actually "Bushman style"... but I stole it! :))

What a great Day!!!

The Snuggie...

This is my new favorite ad! It comes on late at night... and it makes me bust up! I hope Shane gets me one of these for Christmas! My favorite part is when the whole family is at the football game... I thought it was a joke at first... but apparently not! I bet these things are selling like hotcakes!! :)

http://www.getsnuggie.com/flare/next?videoID=ai195&bufferTime=5

(I had to take the actual video off here because I couldn't figure out how to have it not start "automatically", but check it out!)

TWILIGHT... ahhhh

Well Shane and I (and Kim and Rusty) can now officially say that we have been to 9 PM Sacrament Meeting (in Island Park) and can now add going to the Midnight Movie. Yes... last night we along with 1/2 of the valley went to the midnight showing of "Twilight". Shane and Rusty were so excited all day. :) (We ♥ them!) They both told their friends that they were going, and yes... they got laughed at.... Rusty's friend said, "You know you're going to be the only guy there." He responded with, "Nope, my buddy is going too!" So when we got to the theatre at 11:40 with pre-bought tickets of course. We were a little surprised to see the line out the building... and down the street... no joke! We ended up getting the last row available... the front row. My neck isn't actually as stiff as I thought it might be. :0) I thought the movie was great... it probably won't win many awards... but I'm not really a "deep" movie watcher anyway... I agree with many people that Edward just wasn't as good looking as he could have been... but then I reason that beauty is in the eye of the beholder! The best part of going to a movie with die-hard fans is that people are way into it... maybe too much. I mean women laughed at EVERYTHING Edward said (and of course oohed and ahhed)... you know that giddy laugh when the guy isn't even that funny, just cute... so girls think he's funny?... (It makes me wonder how comedians like Connon O'Brien (can't stand the guy!) ever make it... I mean he's not funny and DEFINITELY not getting any laughs because he's cute!) All in all I loved the movie! Shane and Rusty even admitted that it was pretty good and action packed... they even said they would go to the next one... as the movie ended in that "certain to have a sequel" point. For that one maybe we will try the 2:30 AM showing..., yep that's right... people were lined up when we got out (at 2 AM) for that one... That will be just one more thing to check off our "done once in a lifetime" list!

Tagged!

I have been tagged by Kimi... it seemed simple enough these were the rules...

1. Go to your pictures
2. Go to your 4th folder and upoload your 4th picture
3. Post

So lucky me... I came up with this gem of a photo!

WOW! Yes I am at that stage of my pregnancy where you can "safely assume" I am pregnant! Truly I can't believe Shane let me out of the house like that! (Notice I posted it smaller - because much larger and I might break right out of the screen!) This is on Kenna's 3rd birthday - July 3rd 2006... waiting for the fireworks to start... I was pregnant with Jadyn for 22 more days after this photo was taken... WOW again! You know how you see ladies who are pregnant and you can't tell from behind... you can tell from ALL sides when I am pregnant! It's a good thing babies are so dang cute!!

Now it's my turn.... hehehe I tag my new "blogging" sister Shelly (she's not my NEW sister, just a new blogger), Christie, Missy and Alison. See if you can beat that picture!

Do you know your shapes?

I love Kindergarten... There is nothing better than seeing the cute little projects that the kids bring home and the excitement that goes with it. So the "where is Teddy" book that Kenna made and brought home was of course the first thing that she showed each member of our family on their arrivals home. All seemed normal until the last two pages... I had her bring it over to me just so I could see for myself... see what you think...
Apparently I did not prepare my child for Kindergarten as well as I thought I had because I dare say I have never referred to an oval or a diamond as an "ellipse" and "rhombus"...

Think of the changes to our world!... A "ball diamond" should really be known as a "ball rhombus" and the "Olympic Oval"... I will now refer to as the "Olympic Ellipse"!!! Now when I ask the kids to get me "an egg" I follow it with... "you know the ellipse shaped one."

October Fun...

I love Daylight Savings Time… an extra hour of sleep is pretty important around our house (and I’m sure yours!)… These are some of the things we’ve done in the last 2 weeks… and why we were glad for that extra hour!

We got "lost" at the Green Canyon Farms Corn Maze…

We made “Trick-or-Treat” buckets…

We went to Saige’s school carnival…
Tayler, Our Spa Princess

Jadyn, our Funky Monkey!

Saige was a "50's girl"... someone asked her if she was from "Happy Days"... she had NEVER heard of it... she relates it better to the movie "Hairspray".
My mom was proud to say it was "her era", I wasn't very excited when Saige asked if I wore something like this to school... AND if I had a color TV when I was growing up! (but then I do keep getting those notices about turning 65 - in fact I got one for a retirement center... that said, "you ought to start thinking about this"!

Kenna our Beautiful Fairy us... well we're pumpkins of course!

…after the carnival we went to the 9 PM showing of High School Musical 3 "Senior Year" (with the Carlsen’s) – on the opening day. What a hoot! I have loved all of these shows, clean, cheesy, with random outbursts of singing at laughable times! Just the kind of show I want my girls watching… (although I will say that the girls in this particular movie definitely have a “different” dress code than my high school had!)

Tay still had her “mask” on from the carnival. People thought she had dressed up like Sharpay from the movie… so we got a lot of “FAB-U-LOUS”. (Jadyn ate her weight in popcorn!)

Our kids love High School Musical so much that we actually drove down to take a tour of East High with them last summer.

But truly we had to go on the opening day because… well… Shane and I did STAR in it!

(I can't figure out why I couldn't post it here... but if you go to the next post you will see it!)

This made me laugh until I cried… Shane didn’t think it was nearly as funny as I did, but I get goosebumps when he is singing to me… don’t you?

We made caramel apples...
We went to the “Pumpkin Walk”… we actually walked to the pumpkin walk on a gorgeous fall day with my mom… An activity we look forward to all year!


We had…. 12 dance lessons, 6 gymnastics lessons, 4 piano lessons, 2 dentist appointments, I finished 5 Super Saturdays and worked on 6 more, 2 parent teacher conf., helped at Kenna's Kindergarten Carnival, ran Saige's "class store", went for school lunch with Saige, had 2 activity days where Saige made this…



And Tayler made this purple fish for a Pumpkin Walk display…

We painted pumpkins for Grandma Falslev’s “Contest”… We carved pumpkins…
We cleaned up the yard for winter and hauled 6 loads to "green waste"...

We took down our trampoline… so no more of this for a while…

We had a picnic… on Nov. 1st… the day was absolutely perfect… I dare say I have NEVER had a picnic in November wearing short sleeves!

I made "dinner in a pumpkin… "

The girls made “Mummy dogs”…
The girls all had “crazy hair day” (on different days) at their schools… ( I forgot to take Tayler’s picture… in my defense she leaves for the bus @ 6:45 AM, I'm not really thinking about pictures then!)

We had an adult Progressive Dinner… Very fun, but lots of work for me as Activities Chairman…

We had a Primary Practice… and Sacrament Meeting Primary Program ( I am the pianist.) This meeting is the favorite of the year for me… The girls did great, here are their parts…




We went to an "Emergency Preparedness Meeting". Lots of information, most we had heard before but some good new stuff too. I am now officially a "germ-a-phob" not that I wasn't before this... (Right Andy and Jeff?) So this video she showed made me laugh... But not so much when after it was over Shane actually said, "So are they saying we should cough in our sleeve or we shouldn't" ????????? What do you think?




We went trick-or-treating and had a ward “Trunk-or-Treat”…

Went to dinner with our friends, then played games. (We also played LOTS of "Settlers" on the computer... now that Shane has a laptop we can play each other... we love it!)


We had “Family Pictures” taken… I'm sure I'll post when we get those back!

But Rachel offered to take pictures of us after church the week before…

The WHOLE family had flu shots… Now that is family fun at its best!! And then later that daywe lost Kenna... searched the neighborhood... started to panic... and found her asleep in her bed!

So that is two weeks of our life - thank heavens we had that extra hour! :) Obviously Kenna needed it too!