Regan Stuff

I've been meaning to mention all week that Regan had the opportunity to play the piano in church last Sunday. She played "A Poor Wayfaring Man of Grief" out of the Hymn book. She practiced like crazy and did a really good job. She seems to enjoy playing the piano, but has recently started to whine about practicing.....darn, I thought she would be the exception but I guess not. Thankfully she's not as bad as I remember being (sorry mom). I am proud of her and I'm amazed at how well she plays for having only taken 3 years.

Also, I've had good intentions of posting pictures of Regan playing basketball for months now and just haven't done it and since tomorrow will be her last game, I guess now is a good time. It's been fun to watch her this season and see the big improvement she's made. She's tons more aggressive than last season and her ball handling skills have improved a lot. I'm having a hard time convincing Regan that she's doing well because they haven't won a game yet and she hasn't scored a basket but she has had a few really great assists so now I just have to convince her that an assist is just as good as making the basket herself.

The third picture shows how tiny she is compared to her team mates but what she lacks in height she makes up in speed. She's a little hustler!

Nothing is funny at 3:30 a.m.

maybe YOU will find this funny...... Last night we got one of those dreaded phone calls at 3:30 in the morning where you immediately think someone has died in the family or w/ DJ being Bishop, maybe something tragic with a ward member. Anyway, I grabbed the phone to see who it was and it was one of the sisters I go visiting teaching to. She calmly apologized for calling so late and (or early) as the case was and said she didn't think I'd have a phone right by my bed and planned on leaving me a message, oh, and she used the classic line, "I just thought I would call while I was thinking of it"..........she was calling to tell me she'd have to cancel our v.t. appointment scheduled for today at 11:00, WHAT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! It's 3 a.m. could this not have waited??????? I so wish I would've had a video camera to catch DJ's response to that one, it was classic! He had been in a dead sleep, the kind where drool is running from both corners of your mouth, so it probably scared him the most. I don't sleep heavy anymore because of the little one's so I had a little advantage. Anyway, today I've actually been chuckling about the whole thing amidst my sleep deprivation headache. I just called DJ to tell him something, and he hasn't found the humor in it yet as he's fighting to stay awake sitting at his desk. Poor guy!

Note to self......don't call people at 3 a.m. to cancel an appointment just because you think you might forget to do it in the morning.

Jordyn's Funnies

Jordyn came running in to the kitchen yesterday asking me when we could buy popsicles...what, it's February and 20 degrees outside but whatever. She proceeded to tell me that really needs one of those "popsicle stick thingers to profile her finger nails with." Soooo funny! She keeps me laughing!!

Fun Skiing day!

We all went over to Burley on Sunday night and stayed the night with DJ's sister Ann so we could hit Pomerelle Ski Resort bright and early Monday morning. DJ stayed with the babies and Kaleb so I could ski with the 3 girls and then came up later in the day to watch us. . This was Jordyn's first time so Ann spent the day teaching her and I had fun skiing with Regan and Morgan. They are both good little skiiers for only having been a few times a piece. They were making their way in and out of the little paths in the trees trying to give me a heartattack. I'm not a great skiier but Regan convinced me to try some new runs and I really enjoyed myself.

I took this picture of Regan and I on the way up the ski lift, extreme close ups aren't good if you are trying to hide wrinkles!
It was such a stinking cold day but lots and lots of fun.. I'm kicking myself for not getting any pictures of Jordyn, she was frozen to the bone by the time DJ got there with the camera so you'll just have to imagine how cute she looked skiing down the hill attached with a harness to Aunt Ann.

Valentine's Day Fun

I decided to have a little Valentine's Day party with a bunch of the neighbor kids. We ended up having 13 little girls plus the babies and Kaleb. I found a couple of really cute games on the Internet that didn't take too much preparation and then we decorated Valentine's with lots of craft supplies and then decorated TONS of sugar cookies. I think the girls had a lot of fun, they were super creative and surprisingly not very messy! I can't stand cookie sprinkles, they are just plain messy but they are kids favorite so I couldn't disappoint. Anyway, they are a cute bunch of girls so the 2 hours went by pretty fast.

Crafty girls!

Heart Tic-Tac-Toe game, made with heart bean bags and a "Heart Healthy" exercise game. DJ was teasing me that the girls were really going to thrilled with that one, but it turned out to be one of the favorites. I love that other people are creative so I can just copy their ideas.

Cookie making and eating was probably the favorite. I don't love making sugar cookies but I LOVE eating them!

Life is precious

It's been an interesting week. On Monday one of my very best friends called me with some really bad news. She'd just been to the doctor where they discovered that she has cancer. Apparently she has a tumor the size of an orange on her kidney so yesterday they did surgery to remove that as well as the kidney. I've just been blown away by this news especially because of her sweet little family of 6 children, the oldest being 15 (I think) and youngest are 2 1/2 year old twins. It just seems so unfair that she should have to be going through such a trial at this time in her life but as she so bravely put it to me on the phone, "Heavenly Father will keep me on this earth as long as he wants me here, I'm not in charge." What a great example of complete Faith and courage she is to me! I can only hope that in times of adversity, my attitude would be similar but knowing myself, I tend to think it wouldn't be. Sooooooo, thank you Tisha for your example, I'm praying for you continually and hoping that things turn out as well as they can! I love you!

My new goal.....live everyday to its fullest because everyday is precious and, after all, we aren't in charge, Heavenly Father is.

Crazy babies!

Man, these little people are growing up way too fast! Kamryn, especially! She's decided to not only crawl everywhere but pull herself to standing and then let go, she actually stood for 5 seconds on her own a couple of days ago. Am I happy about this??? Absolutely not, though it is stinking cute to see the little "light-weight" cruising around all over the place but it presents a whole new set of problems. So far she's managed to bloody her nose, smash her fingers, bonk her head several times, and has almost fallen down the stairs a couple of times. Yikes!! This is by far the earliest any of our kids have been mobile so it's kind of rocking my world. Porter on the other hand is happy to sit and watch-and SMILE- as his sister cruises everywhere. He occasionally scoots himself backwards around the house but can generally be found in the same spot we put him in 1/2 hour earlier. I love that he is just happy and content to be a 7 month old. Hopefully he'll continue to be my squishy, loveable baby! Kamryn is my wirey, smiley, cute as a button, 7 month, going on 10 year old. I love the differences! Hope you enjoy the pictures!

Funny moment!

I thought this was deserving of it's own post because it just struck me funny. As I mentioned earlier, I took all the kids up to the campus to DJ's office which meant me carrying 2 babies in car seats, and 4 kids trailing behind me. Walking through campus I passed 2 college guys and just seconds after passing them, I heard one of them say to the other, "WOOOOOW, now that's a lot of kids." I couldn't help but turn around and laugh out loud, so I think I embarrassed him. It's funny because somedays I don't think 6 kids is very many but other days I wonder why I ever thought I could handle this many kids. (actually most days lately) It's just funny when someone else points it out to you! But, that being said, I wouldn't give a one of them back! I love each one of them and can't imagine my life without them.

Random pictures

A couple of weeks ago my neighbor/friend/also Morgan's soccer coach had a little pre-soccer party in preparation for another season of soccer starting in April. This is the cute little team made of up some stinking cute girls. Anyway, she made lunch for them all and they played the Wii and had lots of fun. Aren't these some of the cutest girls all decked out in pink?


This same neighbor has a little boy Kaleb's age so she invited Kaleb for a little play date along with another boy their age. This picture cracks me up because it looks as if we have no snow but the next picture tells the real story. (We got dumped on a couple of weeks ago) Anyway, Kara pulled them behind the 4-wheeler on a sled! Apparently Kaleb was totally freaked out to begin with but later decided it was so much fun, according to Regan, he was not happy that he had to go home when it was all over. Thanks Kara for including my kids in your fun.

Weekend fun!

I love weekends like the one we just had...fun, fun, fun! (Except for the part about not getting the house cleaned with the kid's help on Saturday) I paid for it today and spent 3 hours this morning working on laundry and such. Oh well, we did have a fun weekend with friends so it was worth it... so here is the low down.

Friday: I took the kids up to DJ's office where we did the kids favorite thing...spent 10 minutes watching all of his funny e:mail videos he gets sent from various people, then we went to grab a bite to eat at on campus, not fabulous food but the kids thought their hamburgers and tator tots were great so, whatever. After that we headed over to visit some of our best friends, the Flora's, we used to live right by them back in our Rexburg days. They have 6 kids with a set of twins on the end, just like us! We love them dearly and enjoyed every minute of our visit. I would move back to Rexburg in a heartbeat if we could live next door to one another. We then dropped the 3 older girls off at our niece (Jessica) apartment for a sleepover, something they've really been looking forward to. I'm hoping my niece took some pictures to document the fun they had. In a nutshell, (according the the girls) they watched 3 movies, ate lots of goodies, giggled, stayed up until midnight, slept a little, did tricks on Jessica's bed, ate a yummy breakfast, and then dad picked them up at around 9:00 a.m! Thanks Jess for the great time!

Saturday: More craziness, DJ took the kids to the church along with a couple of Reg's basketball teammates and practiced b-ball for awhile only to later get slaughtered (in all senses of the word) at their basketball game later in the afternoon. The score: 56 to 2, yes, you read that right....so....so...so sad, it's not that they are bad, they just struggle, and as Regan put it, "we just stink!" I don't agree, they've actually played really well at their last game and Regan has improved so much in the past couple of years! I really enjoy watching her but felt so bad for them on Saturday. The team is made up of a few girls who have played b-ball for a few years and then several girls who have never played so naturally they would struggle but after all, it's just a game, (remember that, Regan)

Anyway, on with Saturday, between going to the church and the afternoon basketball game, we managed to squeeze in a fun sledding trip with our good friends, the Andrus's. They invited us over to snowmobile and sled at the gravel pit behind their house. DJ stayed back at their house to watch the babies so I could go and have some fun. it took a few minutes for Jordy and kaleb to warm up to the idea of the sled but in no time they were having a ball. They couldn't get enough of the snowmobile....Morgan is my little dare devil so she and her friend Alissa had a ball as always. Regan her friend Lindy had a ball trying out new ways to go down a small sled together.

Oh, I almost forgot, in between basketball at the church and the b-ball game I made a trip to the doctor with for twins. I thought they both must have ear infections because of their constant runny noses, bad sleeping habits, etc. but it turns out, they just have some virus and they are just must be bad sleepers. Bummer, I would've loved for an explanation to that little problem. But, I am glad they aren't battling the ear infection.

After that, came the sad basketball game and then later my nephew Jared and his wife Rachel called to see if they could bring a movie to watch with the kids. They showed up with popcorn and treats and a movie so we had a ball hanging out with them. Yes, way too many late nights in a row for the kids so we paid for it both Saturday and Sunday with very cranky, over emotional children but we're pretty well rested today.

Church was great yesterday. I always enjoy fast and testimony meeting and the opportunity to fast. I love our ward and appreciate all the good people that we get to associate with. Once again, DJ was home in good time so we took the kids and made a few visits to people in the ward. I'm loving this new church schedule which allows for a few extra minutes with my hubby!