McKenna is 4!!!

I can't believe that my crazy, feisty girl is four. Right now she is screaming for more marshmallows in her hot chocolate because hers apparently melted, (or more likely, she ate them and didn't realize it). Her birthday was back in February while Jeff was in the hospital, (which I do intend to blog about sometime) she was sweet and said that she wanted to wait until daddy was home to celebrate. We kept it low-key, just us and Grandma and Grandpa. I just remembered that Grandma and Grandpa took the girls to a bounce house place and then out to dinner on Kenna's make-up birthday.

We had a Blues Clues game for Kenna to find where the presents were hidden.

The boys putting the bike together!

Blues Clues cake.

Re-Birthday

My Birthday was back in December, and it was a pretty crappy day for me. Let me preface this with how my Mom does a birthday with a Birthday Check List of must-haves

1. Crete paper and balloons up before you wake up

2. Breakfast of choice'

3. Presents on the table

4. Dinner of choice

5. Birthday cake of choice

6. Candles

So on my actual birthday I got one of these things. So I know that I am 27 but I still need Crete paper and balloons and a birthday cake. Jeff was had worked overnight so he pretty much slept on my birthday, and I could not let him live down my disappointment. So when we were in Nebraska for spring break Jeff surprised me (appeased me)  with a little re-birthday. (Caitlin, if you are reading this, it was your blog post that inspired me to plant the idea of a re-birthday in Jeff's head). It was already a really great day because my Mom spoiled me and my sister by having a girls day. She took us to get pedicures and massages. When we got home there was Crete paper and balloons, and Jeff had dinner made. He even whipped up a strawberry trifle. I'm not sure when he did all this because he was watching four kids and took them to the park too. Then to top it all off he got my family to play Pictionary. I'm not really a game person, but I love playing Pictionary with my family. I didn't get my apricot stuffed french toast, but it still was great to be surprised like that.

Colored Tights

The purchase of colored tights was one of my New Year's resolutions. So I saw some at Target that were on clearance that were a kind of mustardy yellow. I wore them with a blue and white flowered skirt, a blue shirt, and camel colored boots. I thought it looked kind of cool and with the reassurance of Jeff that it looked good, I went to church. After sacrament meeting I asked one of the young women in our ward what she thought of  my colored tights (since she was the one who encouraged me to get some), and she said that when she saw them she wondered what was wrong with my legs. Pretty awful spray tan or something like that. So colored tights equals epic fail.

Check Marks For My Resolutions List

I have seen the ocean. Jeff and I flew to California during some of his vacation time. Our friend Misha stayed at our house with her kids and watched them. I have a feeling we didn't pay her enough to watch our three kids, plus her two kids, all under 6 for three days, but I knew my kids were in excellent hands and so the trip was relaxing and peaceful. 

We went to Catalina island and spent our

whole trip there. Here is a picture of the ferry.

(I had never been on a motorized boat and it was

on my unofficial list of things to do). 

First view of the island from the ferry.

Seriously, this was the first thing I did. 

Look at that green grass. We haven't even 

seen grass since Christmas. Oh I can't wait 

for spring in Wisconsin. 

Riding tandem bikes. Also on my unofficial 

list of things to do. I asked the guy who was

renting them if there were any tricks to riding

a tandem bike and he said that after the bike 

ride they offered couple counseling. They 

totally need to. Sitting in the back you don't 

have any steering abilities. I like to steer. And 

you also have no braking abilities. I like to brake 

going down hills. Jeff doesn't. I found this out the 

scary way. 

Our hotel room. Right across the street from the bay.

Jeff wanted to go para-sailing. So here we are

on the boat waiting our turn. The guys that ran the boat

were totally crazy. Seriously Bro. They were the 

stereotypical California beach bums. Oh and one more

note. Shoes should not be optional on a boat. One

of the guys who was going para-sailing took his off

and it smelled so bad. I thought I was going to throw-up. 

Going up.

600 feet above the water. It was actually 

really peaceful up there. 

It was really nice to get away for awhile, I hoped that it would be a little warmer than it was, I walked around feeling cold the whole time. 60 sounds warm, but it wasn't. 

My favorite parts of our trip:

1. Waking up early and walking to a non-touristy spot to watch the sunrise. While we were watching, a group of dolphins swam in front of us. 

2. Climbing on the rocks looking for tide pools and shells.

3. Seeing the pelicans dive into the water and grab fish. Totally cool. 

4. Playing arcade games and eating a really great pizza. 

5. The people we sat next to on the ferry. I love talking to different people.  

My Least favorite parts of our trip: 

1. Paying for the taxi ride from our hotel to the ferry, and then the ferry to the airport. 60 dollars each time. Ridiculous. 

2. Paying for parking at the airport. 19 dollars a day. Also ridiculous. 

3. Paying the tolls on the drive to the Chicago airport. There were four of them. 

4. The stinky feet guy. 

5. The two people behind us on the plane who talked the entire flight. Which left at midnight California time and got to Chicago at 5:50 central time. This was the only sleep we were going to get and we wanted to sleep. 

I RESOLVE TO......

I know that I am a little late in my resolution list as it is almost the end of the month but I have been letting some ideas stew around in my head. Some of my goals are personal, some are family goals and some are just silly. So here they are in no particular order whatsoever.

1. Continue to grow my hair out. I am so close to having one base length. And I like to think that I accomplished this without going through the awkward mullet phase. Anyone who has had short hair and grown it out knows what I am talking about.

2. See the ocean. I have been to the Gulf of Mexico, but nobody has given me a definitive answer as to whether that actually counts as the ocean, so this time I will make sure there is no doubt in anyone's mind. Pacific or Atlantic is the only question?

3. Go paint balling. I have never been and I feel like this is something that should be accomplished in ones life to feel fulfilled.

4. Find a fun family weekly tradition. I want a day of the week my kids (and I) can look forward to because we do something special. We have tried movie night, but I don't like my kids up late and they really don't sit the best watching a movie and quite frankly I'd rather do the dished than watch Dora. I've thought about a special meal but Jeff is so hit and miss for dinner and I don't usually feel like cooking at the end of the day that I don't feel like I can commit to it knowing I would have to do it by myself. I feel like it would be fun to have pizza delivered once a week. That would be awesome and I would totally be able to commit to that. Maybe when we are millionaires I could justify it. So ideas and suggestions would be appreciated.

5. I want to journal one more time that I did last year. So I guess I only have to do it twice this year. Should be pretty easy.

6. I want Jeff and I read the Book of Mormon together. Right now we are reading Articles of Faith and that might be one of the slowest reads. Ever.

7. I want to have a couple of piano students.

8. I want to take swim lessons. I found a place that has a 12 week session that is on Saturday mornings. And a plus is that I heard their pool water was warmer than most. I sometime in my lifetime want to go back to school but I don't feel like I could do it until Jeff is less busy and can support me so as long as I feel like I am learning new things and enriching my life I feel okay that I'm not going back school yet.

9. I want to be happier in Motherhood. Sometimes I feel like I just do things to get through the day. I don't take the time to try and enjoy the blessing that I know Motherhood and being able to stay at home with my kids is, and more often than not I see it as a burden.

10. Spend a little bit of one-on-one time with each of my kids everyday. Even if it is just tucking them.

11. Clean the house every night before bed. We have been doing this for the last few months and I really like the feeling of waking up to a clean house.

12. I have been doing really well at waking up before my kids do in the morning so that I can be showered and ready to help them as soon as they wake up. Perhaps I could wake up a little bit earlier and spend some time exercising. I don't really care when I do it but I would like to strengthen my heart so that I am not panting when I go up our three flights of stairs.

13. Share my testimony more frequently. I have started bearing my testimony to the kids during family scripture about whatever topic we were talking about and I have enjoyed it.

14. Buy some colored tights. I know that I am not the trendiest person in the world but I have to try a little.

I could go on and on all day long I am sure. But I will end it here. That is surely enough for me to accomplish in such a little amount of time (remember I am a whole month late in the game).

Christmas

I am not feeling so chatty, so this will probably be mostly a picture update. A picture is worth a thousand words right? In that case I'm saving myself 16,000 words. Works for me. 

I knew we got a lot of snow during our blizzard but
I never thought to find out how much. Can you guess? 20 inches.
That is a lot of snow.  Luckily Jeff's parents and grandma were still
able to make it out for Christmas. 

All the stockings were hung by the chimney with care...

Until I moved them because they were hiding my gingerbread house. 

It was a tradition in my house growing up to take a picture
on the stairs before we could go look at what Santa had brought us.
Looks like it went over really well right?

Lauren got her melty beads. It was all she asked Santa for.
She is so easy to please. 

We went sledding on Christmas day. The snow was to
deep and the wind was too chilly so we didn't last too long. 

Callum's dump truck. It is smaller than the one his friend has
and when he sat in it (like he does with his friends) the truck
fell over and he hasn't really touched it since. 

"Oh, I'm just sitting in a princess chair, driving a pony car."
Seriously one of my favorite pictures. 

New outfits from Grandma Marlene. 

We got a lot of fun toys at Christmas that are thankfully keeping the kids entertained during the Christmas break. The girls have had a lot of fun getting to play together all day long, but I will be happy when we go back to our regular schedules. I've realized that I am out of practice at taking my three kiddos with me places. With Lauren at school and Kenna at preschool I usually run my errands with just Callum. Coincidentally we have no milk, eggs, yogurt, and we are almost out of bread. I think I will have to hunker down and go to the store because I don't think we can make it until Wednesday.

Diligence

It took her six hours and a bribe of some candy if she could do the puzzle all by herself. But she did it. A 100 piece puzzle. That is some mighty determination.

Gingerbread House

This was my first time making a gingerbread house I can't say that it was very successful. First of all I cut out all the parts before I baked them, which wasn't terrible except the fact that the warped a little bit. I wasn't very careful about the thickness and the ones that were really thick have fluffy windows. So for the purist gingerbread maker this house is a disaster because there is a ton of hot glue holding this thing together. I also was a little unsure of how done they should have been when I took them out of the oven. Because they weren't hard when I tested them I left a couple of them in until the were crisp in the oven which basically means that they are burnt. Lessons learned: Next year be diligent in my rolling, and take them out when the are still soft. They cool hard. 

Once There Was a Snowman

On Sunday we awoke to beautiful snow. Not very much in the morning but by afternoon there was about 4 inches of super wet perfect snow. The girls woke up put on their snow clothes and went outside all by themselves. Jeff and the girls walked to the church to help shovel the sidewalks before the 9:00 church started. He said that they weren't a lot of help but that they had fun.

After church and nap time we bundled up (it really wasn't even that cold) to build a snowman and play in the snow. We had a lot of fun. Probably the best snow playing experience I have ever had. The snow was perfectly wet and made our snowman easy and fast to build.

Making snow angels. 

I love this face. 

Jeff getting tackled in the snow by Lauren
(I can tell because of her gloves)

Weird Dreams

I have been having super weird dreams lately. I have always been one to remember my dreams but they have seemed so vivid and I have been having one almost every night. So I thought I would share them because they are fairly ridiculous.

1. I had a dream that I was helping out with a young woman's activity and the were playing a game a charades. One of the girls couldn't get the group to guess what she was acting out so she asked me to help her with it, so I get up and start dancing around and mimicking this girl, but I have no idea what the word is because she didn't tell me and nobody ever guesses it and I was a little resentful because we could have totally gotten the group to guess what the word was if only I had known what it was. The kicker? I never found out what it was that I was supposed to be acting out.

2. Aliens. I mostly blame this dream on watching Men In Black last weekend. It was getting kind of scary so I was glad when Lauren came in and woke me up because she needed help going to the bathroom.

3. Zac Efron. In my dream I was a total fanatic and I was kind of stalking him. Insider information was that he was going to be at the mall looking for a ring for Vanessa (this is clearly pre-break-up). He apparently wanted to find one like her Grandma's (or to replace one that she had loved but lost). So anyway, I felt like I could help him find one like it. So I approached him and offered my services. Turns out the owner of the jewelry store knew exactly where to find one that Zac was looking for. Hallmark. (Strange huh)? Even though he knew where to go I went with him. It turns out that Zac didn't really like fans or more precisely stalker fans. But it didn't bother me. In the end he was being followed by paparazzi so he and Vanessa took a private plane to Houston Texas and Zac entrusted me with driving his SUV to Texas. It turns out that I have family in Texas (not in real life but in my dream) and Zac was a little wary of having to meet them to get his car and keys from me. I told him that they wouldn't be a problem and wouldn't even talk to him. So he gets to the house rings the door bell and my family (not my real family, but my dream family) opens the door pretty much bombard him with hugs and questions. Then drags him into the house and makes him eat some pie.  And that is all that I remember. It was pretty funny. But now I am questioning if I should end my star crush on him.

4. Jeff dumped me. I don't know if we were married or just dating, but there was another guy who wanted to date me and Jeff told me that I should choose the other guy. I started to cry and he said "we are good together for a little while, but not forever." There was really no background to this dream but "the other guy" was kind of dreamy. When I woke up I felt a little confused and told Jeff never to dump me.

Christmas Trees and Christmas Bells

This year we were at my parents house for Thanksgiving and as is tradition we went to get a Christmas tree the day after Thanksgiving. Jeff and I decided that we would pick out our Christmas tree too and just bring it back to Wisconsin with us. Ummm. Dumb idea. First of all the tree sat on top of our car for three days, which as a side note made our van really easy to spot in a parking lot, secondly it made us get horrible gas mileage. On the way down to Nebraska we stopped for gas one time on the way up we had to stop twice.
Anyway it is a great tree and hopefully it will last until Christmas.

The tree we picked was pretty much the very first
tree that we saw. Good thing too because it was
really, really cold. 

I am pretty sure that I have a picture just like this for
every Christmas that Jeff and I have been married.

Lauren and Sofia wheeling in the goods.

Our tree making the journey home. 

I could not get these girl to smile normal. They really did all the
decorating down at the bottom. I have only moved a couple
of things. I guess that practice run on Grandma's tree got
them seasoned and ready for our tree.  

Yesterday our little family rang bells for the Salvation Army. We were at our local grocery store and when I was signing us up on the internet it said that singing was highly encouraged. I kind of put off practicing any Christmas songs with the girls until Saturday morning where I then realized that the know only three Christmas songs. Jingle Bells, Deck the Halls (thanks to Barbie: A Perfect Christmas), and Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer. We were scheduled to ring bells for one hour. And singing those three songs over and over was a bit monotonous and the girls got pretty tired of standing and singing, but they did great and I think really enjoyed it.

The girls rocking out to "Jingle Bells" they were a real hit
with the older ladies. 

Callum really enjoyed biting the bell more than ringing it. 

I am thankful for. . .

I couldn't let the month of November pass without writing at least in part some of the things that I am grateful for.

1. I am grateful to have had safe travels this Thanksgiving season. We did a lot of driving and on our way home today realized that we had driven 10,000 miles since our last oil change. Oops. We added a quart of oil and even then it was barely at the minimum line. Oops again.

2. I am grateful that the roofers started to work on our unit the day AFTER we left. I am not sure but I think that they are finished.

3. I am thankful that I got to meet my new sister-in-law Lissette and her daughter Sofia. They are both very sweet. Among that list of new acquaintances I got to meet my niece Charity's husband Patrick and their daughter Addison. (Yes. That is my Great-Niece).

4. I am thankful for the gospel. My sister-in-law Amy was diagnosed with leukemia the day before Thanksgiving and our family fasted for my brother and her and their family to have faith and comfort in this time of trial and heartache. I was very special for me to see my family come together and coordinate to hold a special fast for them.

5. I am thankful for the temple. This weekend my Jeff and I got to go the temple together to do an endowment session. My sister Alissa and my Dad came too. I was happy to be there to feel the spirit.

6. I am thankful for friends. Old friends and new friends. While we were in Nebraska we were able to visit with some of our friends in Omaha and after we left I realized that they felt more like family to me than just friends. Hopefully soon my new friends will feel like old friends.

7. I am grateful for my very large, very loud family. There was lots of laughs and lots of good food. (I usually am assigned the task of setting tables and napkin folding, but this year I was in the kitchen helping with food and boy was that a chaotic place to be. I think next year I will opt for table duty). I wish that more of us could have been at my parents house for Thanksgiving and be able see some of my family I haven't seen for a while.