The Hooper Family

Update

2011-04-17T22:05:00.000-07:00

We are all still here at the Hooper house. I have neglected this poor blog that I start questioning if it is even worth trying to keep up! I do WANT to keep it up, but honestly it has been so frustrating that I'd all but given up. However, I LOVE getting to read other peoples blogs, so I will try again. We will see. Our computer situation right now has made it beyond annoying to try to deal with pictures so I will try and deal with them when I am stronger. :)

Seth is doing awesome. He is a cute and funny and lovable little guy. He is still in the stage where he will say whatever you ask him to say, so we take advantage of this all the time and have him say really big long words or phrases and crack up at how they come out. He is such a good little talker that he does pretty well at our game. He is my sweet buddy that hangs out all day with me while the big kids are at school. :)

Isaac is doing awesome. I think Isaac feels every emotion 10x stronger than normal people. No one gets as excited as he does, or angry, sad, happy...all of it. Thankfully he is a happy guy so we rarely have to see the angries and sads. Isaac is still doing Karate. He is a purple belt right now, but he will belt test this week. Wish us luck! Isaac is super loving and kind to me. He is always making my day giving me and Livvi compliments like "You are as pretty as a pink unicorn" or "I think you are the cutest mom ever" (I am the luckiest...that I know for sure)

Grant is doing awesome. He just earned his Wolf badge in cubs. He was super excited to get to "wolf" down his treat with no hands. :) Grant is growing like crazy. I feel like I have to buy him new shoes alllllll the time because his feet are growing so fast...they are getting HUGE....hobbit huge! Grant is competitive and LOVES getting the highest grades and finishing his work first in class. His teacher comments that he rushes through his work, but he always get 100%, so she is cool with it. (me too) He got to go with Ryan on a really cool hiking trip. (See Ryan's facebook albums for pics). Grant is still doing Karate. He is a purple with white stripe belt and is testing this week with Isaac. He has only one more article of faith to memorize! Grant is taking piano lessons and is doing wonderfully in them.

Olivia is doing awesome. Lots has changed for Liv. She has retired from gymnastics. It was something we were thinking of, and then we got to be in a musical together, (which she LOVED) and it gave her the courage to try something new. I know she loved being in gymnastics, but she was ready to move on to other things. As her mom, I was very thankful, not that I wasn't happy with gym, its just I knew other things could bring her more joy. :) Now she is singing in the East Valley Mormon Choir Organization. She also is taking piano lessons, and plays the violin at school. She is doing really well with them. She learns so fast! She was elected to be the president of her schools national elementary honor society. She is thrilled.

Ryan is doing awesome. He has been busy being the best hubby ever. He has earned a few more patents. He is the most creative person I know! He is been on some awesome hiking and canyoneering trips (again, check his facebook...he documents them way better than I could). He is a very patient man. (Thankfully) He is always happy to help me with whatever crazy project or predicament I get myself into.

I am doing awesome...there is a trend going here...Life is great, we are happy, we are blessed. Sometimes I don't blog because I am not so great with writing. How can I express how happy I am to be a wife and mom and all that comes with it? Its like in that Christmas song...John Rutter I think..."How can you capture the wind on the water? How can you count all the stars in the sky? How can you measure the love of a mother? Or how can you write down a baby's first cries?" I have been able to do a little more singing lately in these last few months and it has been wonderful. I am going to start the kids on sight-singing very soon. :)

So now we are (sort-of) up to date. I kind of glossed over several months, but my hope is just to write a few things more often, so we don't forget them later...Like all the sleep walking that has been going on around here...Hows that for a cliff hanger???

Happy Birthday Ryan

2010-11-12T11:40:00.000-08:00

For Ryan's birthday this year, he took us all hiking. We had so much fun. The kids are great little hikers. Even Seth hiked for a while. When he got tired Ryan carried him in the baby back pack. It was so nice to get away and enjoy the outdoors for the morning.

The kids at the start of the hike

Ryan's birthday breakfast

Cracking up over a few of his presents...egg nog (he loves it) and the current jar of peanut butter (you never know what the kiddos will find around the house to wrap up.)

In honor of Ryan's 34th birthday, here are 34 fun facts about Ryan...

1. He sets goals, and works really hard to accomplish them.
2. He is very patient.
3. He loves canyoneering.
4. He invented one of the parts in the guitar for guitar hero.
5. For the past 12+ years, Monday thru Friday, he eats peanut butter sandwiches for lunch.
6. He has camped overnight on the top of Weaver's needle.
7. He likes to run...(well, I don't know if he really likes running or not, but he runs so he is in good enough shape for hikes etc)
8. He is an excellent story teller.
9. He likes the show The Office.
10. At one time he was extremely OCD about germs and washing hands etc, but has worked really hard to relax about all that.
11. He speaks Spanish.
12. He loves milk shakes.
13. He loves going on vacations.
14. He climbed to the top of Half dome this year.
15. He has been to Kuala Lumpur more times than I can remember.
16. He likes Star Wars.
17. He is a super husband.
18. His favorite food is soft shell crab.
19. His ankles crack when he walks up and down the stairs.
20. He is an awesome dad.
21. He likes to read.
22. He fixes dinner for the family every Sunday.
23. He is into saving money.
24. He is into NOT wasting money...(hee hee...this one is for the kids because we frequently talk about how to not waste money as part of FHE.) :)
25. He can do all sorts of weird hand tricks that keep the kiddos entertained during church.
26. He is really really really strong.
27. He can do back flips on the trampoline.
28. He takes care of his family.
29. He can sing really well--just doesn't do it that often.
30. He is does not like shopping.
31. He is good at hunting scorpions with his trusty black light and "death stick" (aka the old broom handle)
32. He is compassionate
33. He is happy
34. He is HANDSOME!!!

Love you husband! Happy Birthday. :)

Happy Halloween

2010-11-09T13:03:00.000-08:00

Well, better late than never...

We had a great Halloween. We carved pumpkins Thursday evening before we took the kids to gymnastics and karate. Lots of fun. And the best part was that Olivia, Grant, and Isaac carved their pumpkins themselves!!! Seth and I shared, and Ryan had his own. Nice. :)

Grantman the Cowboy

The boys

Grandma Hooper let Grant borrow his sweet cow hide coat to complete his cowboy look. :)

Isaac aka Indiana Jones

I love it!!!

Olivia is the queen bee

Very very sparkly queen bee

Seth was Dash from the incredibles

He really got into character...he was so fast I couldn't get a good picture of him. :-[

The group of us...I was glad Grant let me borrow his karate gui to wear, however I'm not sure if I'm happy or sad about the fact that it fit...(At least it was really short on me;) )

We had lots of fun at our ward trunk or treat. The best was when we got home and the kids had their "semi-annual candy exchange" where they trade each other for their favorite candies. (They said the "annual candy exchange" was at Easter) Then they figured out they could give Seth all the gross candy and he would happily give them the good stuff. He was just happy to be included. I let them eat candy 'til bed time and the next day too, then we cleaned up all the wrappers and brushed teeth and were finished with it. :) It is nice to have it gone!!!

First Meet

2010-09-28T00:05:00.000-07:00

Olivia had her first gymnastics meet of the season. She did great and had lots of fun. You can't use the flash during competitions, so we don't have a lot of pictures of her competing, but here she is in an arabesque with her medal. She placed 2nd on each event for her level, and 5th over all for her level. Great job Livvi!

Happy Birthday Olivia

2010-09-23T13:10:00.000-07:00

Our sweet daughter Olivia turned 10!!!! Yikes! We had a fun weekend celebrating her birthday. She requested breakfast sandwiches for breakfast, I took panda express to her at school for lunch, and tacos with extra olives for dinner. This year we let her have a "friend" party. I'm not a big party planner, usually we just invite cousins over or something, but she was really excited for one, so I was really brave and we did it. In honor of Olivia turning 10, here are 10 fun facts about her...

1. Olivia loves to read, and she is really really good at it.

2. Olivia is an excellent student. I NEVER have to ask her if her homework is done. Its always done.

3. Olivia is a good friend.

4. Olivia is a missionary. :)

5. Olivia is already an excellent babysitter.

6. Olivia is enthusiastic. I love being around her because it makes me more excited about things too.

7. Olivia loves gymnastics. Her strength is her flexibility. Not many people can do the stretches she can do.

8. Olivia wants to be an author BEFORE she grows up. Why not start sooner (her words)

9. Olivia is selfless. So many times I see her being a peace maker rather than take what is rightfully hers.

10. Olivia loves trying new things. We are in the middle of our first musical TOGETHER and she is doing wonderful! She helps me with my lines because hers were learned months ago...She also started the violin--SO CUTE!!!

We love you Olivia and we love how blessed our family is because of you!

Here are a few pics of the fun events...Her party was a watch-a-movie-in-p.j.s party--very fun.

New Belts

2010-09-23T12:43:00.000-07:00

Someday I will be caught up, but until then, here is more old news...

Shortly after school started Grant and Isaac earned their Blue with Purple stripe belts, and two more kata patches each. We are so proud of them. They are in the advanced class (blue belts and above) and their class was so late in the evening. They were so tired when they finished, but they stuck it out and did great. They started the summer as solid blue belts and ended with skipping two stripes to move to their blue with purple stripe belts. We are so happy for them. Now they are working a lot with their nun chucks. (SO CUTE!!!) And the best part is now the advanced class is on a different day so they don't have to stay up so late. Good times.

Isaac with a guarding block and Grant sporting a knife hand block. (I think) :)

First day of School

2010-09-22T13:06:00.000-07:00

Still playing catch-up with the ol' blog. Didn't want to miss this very important day.
The first day of school was great. So far so good. The kiddos love there teachers and are happy to be back in the school routine.

Grantman, the mighty third grader.
Isaac, first grader MVP (at least to this MOM)

Olivia, my darling fifth grader.

It is truly scary how quickly the kids are growing up. It doesn't feel all that long ago that I dropped Olivia off for her first day of young learners kindergarten. I couldn't go home without her, so I took my baby boys (at the time) to walmart and we walked around for hours and ate a LOT of donuts. Since then I've learned not to drown my "I am going to miss my sweet kids" feelings in donuts and although its still a sad day for me, I am super happy that they love school and are excited to go.

Grand kids

2010-09-13T18:30:00.000-07:00

We were in Snowflake for the Pioneer days celebration. We had a wonderful time as always. The kiddos got to be in the parade again riding in Uncle Nolan's trash cans. (made their summer). We took some family pictures while we were there. We had to photo shop a few in, so I can't post those yet, but here is one Ryan took of all the Larson grand kids. Sweet group!

Here is part of the trash can train...there are more on my facebook, I just don't know how to put them on here. :) In my atempt to win the mother-of-the-year award I took a ride in them too because Seth wanted a turn and he was a little too small, so I held him inside the trash can. -Pretty fun
All but one of the Larson grand kids with my mom and dad. (my little nephew Dax was napping, but we will put him in there)

Seth and I at the parade.

I just put this pic in because I love it. I came home from a rehearsal one night and found these too little buddies all snuggled up together. :)

Happy Birthday Isaac

2010-09-13T18:19:00.001-07:00

While I have been on a blog vacation, my sweet Isaac turned six. He had a pirate themed birthday with krispy kremes for breakfast. In honor of Isaac turning six, here are six fun facts about Isaac...

1. Isaac is super scrappy--we love that about him.
2. Isaac has his own pronunciation for many words i.e. BAZOMBIES (zombies) RENUKE (nuke) CURRICULUM (kryptonite) KABOOZLE (kazoo)...I could go on :)
3. Isaac is very responsible with his glasses. He puts them away at night, and likes to wash them.
4. Isaac is a snuggle bug--LOVE IT!!!
5. Isaac is excited almost all the time.
6. Isaac is fearless. :)
Not the best quality on the pictures I know, but you have to have the age on the fingers shot.

We love our Isaac man. You are growing up SO FAST!

2010-09-13T18:11:00.000-07:00

Dear Blog,

I have neglected you for far too long. I'm sorry. I've been too occupied with other fun things to update you. I will try and do better...

Hugs,
Me

Utah Vacation

2010-06-21T12:51:00.000-07:00

We had a wonderful vacation to Utah this year. We were so happy to have Grandma and Grandpa Hooper with us, and Julee and Danny and kids for part of it too. We went to Navajo Bridge, Zion National Park, Provo, Temple Square, the Great Salt Lake, went to our adorable new nephew Wyatt's baby blessing, Drove the strip in Vegas, and took a few pictures at the Hoover dam. We survived and loved it all. The kids did great. They hiked so much, and didn't complain once. :) Our biggest disappointment was the lack of Carl's Jr restaurants along the way. (They are the ONLY fast food chain in our opinion). It was fun to get away and enjoy being together. Good times. Julee and Danny, Thanks so much for letting us hang out with you. You guys are so much fun. :)

Here is a few of our pictures from the trip. I was having difficulties loading the pictures, so we don't have it all. But that might get boring anyway...

Happy Father's Day

2010-06-21T08:47:00.001-07:00

Happy Father's day to my sweet hubby! Here are a few thoughts about Ryan...

H-Helpful
A-Attitude, He has a great one
P-Patience, its a prerequisite at our house. :)
P-Phoenix Suns fan
Y-Yes, I'm super glad I married him!

F-Faithful
A-Active, always up for adventure
T-Tall, he reaches high things for me and never complains about it
H-HANDSOME
E-Eternity, that's how long he's ours
R-Reverent
S-Star Wars toys, he has some awesome ones, and he lets the kids play with them all. :)

D-Devoted
A-Attentive
Y-You are awesome, and we love you!!!!!

Thanks for being the best hubby and daddy!

Happy Birthday Seth

2010-06-21T08:12:00.000-07:00

Our baby Seth is now two! I can't believe it. I didn't give him permission, but he is growing up anyways. We had a fun day with Seth for his birthday. Seth LOVES trains, so I made him a train birthday cake.
Here he is for his birthday breakfast...pop tarts.

Seth got a little train for his birthday. He loves it and carries it around with him EVERYWHERE we go. When we go swimming he leaves it in the car and brings a hot wheels car with him. Those trains are pricey...no taking them in the store, pool, or church...they'll just get lost. We had tons of hot wheels though, so that I don't mind. As soon as we get back in the car though he switches back to his train.

His birthday dinner was hot dogs. Here is his big ketchup grin.

The kiddos.

Since Seth is now the big 0-2, here are 2 fun facts about Seth...

1. Seth doesn't like it when someone is sleeping and he is awake. He will come up to you and tell you "wate-up!" if he sees you with eyes closed. Ryan learned this the hard way...He had dosed off in sacrament meeting, and when Seth noticed he said in a NOT reverent voice "Wate-up Dadda! until dadda woke up. Hee hee.

2. Seth LOVES planes and trains. Any sound we hear he will stop and make sure its not a train or and airplane before we can move on.

We love our little Seth. We didn't realize how big he was getting 'til we watched my little nephew Dax. Then he looked like a giant. Ryan and I both were shocked by how grown up he looked compared to an actual baby. That's ok though. We are thrilled he is doing well, and love having him in our family.

Back to Blogging

2010-06-21T06:52:00.000-07:00

I took a little Blog Vacation, but hopefully I'm back on track for a while. (Well, if I can ever catch up). I'm just going to try to get us current again, so no fancy stuff and out of order pictures. Its faster that way. So here's what we've been up to...

Ryan has been super busy with work, but still finds time to be the best husband and dad ever. He has been on some exciting hikes and canyons lately. He has a huge one coming up next week. For pics and info on all of Ryan's canyoneering adventures see his fb photos. He keeps better track of them than I could.

I am still just very thankful to have survived May. That was one crazy month with Grantman's baptism, all the end of the year school stuff, and sharing times etc. It was awesome, but very busy. Summer is going well. It is fun to have the kids around. Its nice to know that my taxi services are still required several times a day. One of the highlights of Motherhood came a few weeks ago. It was the first time I took the kids swimming for the summer. As we were driving over to the pool, the kids were being over the top thankful and complimentary of me for taking them swimming. (We really like to build stuff up sometimes) :) Anyway, as we were getting out of the car and walking to the pool, Isaac and Grant started fighting about if I was young or beautiful. HA! I just let them fight, and enjoyed the moment. It may never happen again, but I won't forget it. Good times.

Olivia is doing great. She was invited to be a candidate for the team in gymnastics. She is now practicing with the team girls for over the summer, and they will test her at the end of the summer to see if she is ready to stay on the team. I'm super proud of her. It was a big adjustment to go to the long team workouts compared to her regular classes. She loves it though and is doing really well. I love that she has something that she has to really work HARD for. She has improved so much already. We are happy that she gets to be in the Honor Society and that she received so many academic awards for school. She is loving activity days, reading and swimming. Plus she helps me SO MUCH.

Grant is doing awesome as well. He loves his new set of scriptures he got for his eighth birthday. He has been busy marking them all up. :) Grant also did awesome in school. Now that he is a blue belt, his karate classes are getting so exciting. They are learning a new bow staff kata. It looks super cool. I will try and post a video when they learn it all. Grant is LOVING being in cub scouts. He has his book out all the time and is always working on something. He is determined to beat me in arm wrestling. I can still take him, but I will break a sweat doing it now. It won't be very long. YIKES!

Isaac is having a great summer so far. We went to his kindergarten graduation in May. He is a great student and we are super happy that he works hard in school. He is LOVING karate now too. (who knew little boys would love learning weapon katas??? hee hee) He is anxiously awaiting the arrival of his NUN CHUCKS. :) Last week he asked me if we could not be too busy that day because he needed to make time for his "Jedi training." I love how this little guy's mind works. Makes me happy. (yes, we had plenty of time for his Jedi training).

Seth is now two. I will post more on that later. Seth is in his first session of swimming lessons. So far he just screams the whole time. However when we are just playing at the pool I can do all the stuff with him from swimming lessons and he only freaks out over the back float. I can even dunk him and he doesn't get mad. So I know he is learning a little, I just feel bad for all the other parents and kids in our class. Sorry--maybe you should bring ear plugs. :) Seth is a talker. He surprises us all the time with the stuff he says. One of my favorites is that he rarely just says no. It is always no thank you. So sweet. We also love how he says strawberries. This is his favorite food, and he says it different every time. It usually has 5-7 syllables in it something like stradabedididies. The more excited he is about them, there is usually more syllables in it. He will also walk into a room and say hey, whats doe-ing on in here? When he is playing by himself, we will hear him pretend fighting with his toys: dive it back! no you dive it back! Oh sorry. Over and over. It makes us sad that he plays fighting. I guess we need to work on being a little nicer so Seth can hear more pleasant things to play about.

So far it has been a great summer. Nothing better than having extra time with the kiddos! These little ones are so much fun. I'm a super lucky mama!

Here are a few pics of the kids end of year things.

Isaac's kindergarten graduation

Olivia's recorder concert

Livvi and Grant after their Honor Choir Concert (Grant is catching up in height...zoinks!)

I missed getting to post on Mother's and Father's day. We just wanted to tell our moms and dads again how grateful we are to have you guys. We are so lucky to have awesome parents, and awesome grandparents for our kiddos. Thanks for always being there with advice, help, love, and patience. Love you!

You know you have good kids when...

2010-05-26T22:15:00.000-07:00

My sweet little kiddos have been worried sick this week because it is the last week of school, and I haven't got their new school books to work on over the summer yet. :) Hope they are always this excited about learning.

Birthday/Baptism

2010-05-08T16:58:00.001-07:00

It has been some exciting times here at the Hooper house. Grant turned eight years old in April. His birthday was the same day as our ward's father/son camp out, and he was thrilled about that. They had a great time. Each year they come back saying that that was the best year ever. :) Grant has been super excited for his baptism too. He told me that the birthdays that he is most excited for are the 8, 12,14,16, and 19 year old birthdays, because those are "church birthdays" (love it!!!)

Grant's baptism was today. It was very sweet and special for us, and we are grateful for everyone who came to support our Grantman. In honor of Grant's eighth birthday, here are 8 fun facts about Grant...

1. Grant's favorite food are tacquitos.
2. Grant loves hiking. He has recently climbed Camel Back Mountain with his dad, and hiked through the Chiricahua National Monument, and Barks Canyon and LOVED it.
3. Grant was super excited to finally get to go to cub scouts. He has already completed a lot of stuff for that.
4. Grant is great at arm wrestling. (He can almost be me (mom)--and everyone knows that I am freakishly strong)
5. Grant is a blue belt in Karate.
6. Grant is a super cheerful kid. A smile is his "normal" mouth position. :)
7. Grant is responsible. He always does his school work and helps look after Seth.
8. Grant loves to read. He SMASHES his AR goals each quarter, and then keeps reading more. Some of his favorites are Magic Tree House books, Ricky Ricotta books, and scriptures.

We love you Grant, you are a great kid, and we are so blessed to have you in our family!

Here are a few pics from the baptism...
The family
Handsome & Handsome :)

Just for fun...Here is Grant and Liv, same pose, same place 19 months apart...

A fun bit of trivia too...Almost all of the Larson boys have been baptized in the white suit Grant is wearing. We barely got it on Grant. If the baptism was tomorrow, it probably wouldn't have fit. The suit Olivia is wearing is the same one I wore when I was baptized and almost all of the other Larson girls as well. Thanks for saving those Mom!!!

Hanging on the wall in our hall is a a quote my mom gave me that says "The nearest thing to Heaven is a Child" underneath I have pictures of my four babies in their white blessing day outfits. I think I will add these as well. I love these eight year old excited faces. They KNOW what they are feeling in this moment is so special and it shows. Happy times...

Incriminating evidence

2010-04-13T13:43:00.000-07:00

SOMEONE...wrote their name on the sheets. Who could it be??? I know I should be more upset by this, but it just cracks me up. All kids go through it. Why in the world if you are going to write on something you KNOW you shouldn't, do you write your name? Hee hee. I don't remember if I ever did this, but I remember my brother wrote his name on the wall in our front room, and he even spelled it wrong! Too funny. (sorry Eldon) When Ryan and I were first married, his parents gave us an old dresser. It had a huge M (for Morgan) carved into it. I asked Ryan if he ever did any thing like this, he said he did, but he wrote his little brother James name on it instead of his. I think James even got in trouble for it (sorry James). That's extra tricky. Anyway, the kids are growing up to know how to write their names, but thankfully not fast enough to know not to incriminate themselves. Good times :)
(p.s. sorry the picture is weird, I took this after I'd already tried to get the name off the sheets. It clearly didn't work very good, but it faded enough that I had to play with the contrast etc to get it to show up on camera.)

2010-04-04T21:05:00.000-07:00

Have a wonderful Easter. I know He Lives!

Happy Easter

2010-04-04T06:24:00.000-07:00

Hope everyone has a wonderful Easter. I LOVE when Easter is the same time as conference. What a great weekend it has been. We went to the Easter pageant--so amazing every year! We've colored Easter Eggs (only a dozen, because none of enjoy eating them) Had lots of candy, Olivia and I wore our matching skirts, and the boys wore their matching ties. And we are enjoying conference (as much as we can streaming it online....WHY ISN'T IT ON TV???)

I didn't get a picture of us last Sunday in our new Easter clothes (crazy, crazy morning) so we'll have to re-create it, so I have my "Easter picture" out by our tree before church. :)

This picture has nothing to do with anything, it just makes me smile to see a naked baby running around in a Bumble Bee mask. He wears this allllllll the itme. lol
Olivia took her BFF Alyson with us to the Easter Pageant. She's never seen it before and she LOVED it. I'm happy that Olivia wanted to share it with her friend.

We LOVE all the nice people that will take pictures with my kiddos. It means the world to them.

They even let both boys get a chance to hold the sword and wear the helmet.

We are enjoying our wonderful conference weekend. It comes with the requisite fruit salad, veggie tray, puzzles, NEW crayons, and this year TOO MUCH Easter candy too. Love, love LOVE family time. :)

In other news, we are happy to announce (ok, brag a teeny bit...) that Olivia won first place in the 4th grade ALP Math Olympiads. Math is an almost daily topic at our dinner table, Ryan is always quizzing the kids on either math or geography. We are glad she is doing well. As she is getting older and doing harder math stuff, I'm seriously getting worried. There have been several times where we had to wait 'til dad got home to make sure I told her the right way to do something, and there have been several times that we almost called one of our neighbors who used to be a teacher to help us out because neither of us could figure out how to do a problem in a way she'd understand. Thankfully she figures out most stuff on her own, because mom and dad are starting to worry that we won't be able to keep up!!!

This has been a big week for Livvy, she also passed off her floor routine in Gym and gets to start learning a new one! I'm really excited for her. She loves having a new challenge. :)

Chiricahua

2010-04-04T06:00:00.000-07:00

Ryan and Grant went with Grandpa Hooper and Uncle Morgan to Chiricahua National Monument. Grant has been SO EXCITED for this. He even started running around the block to "get in shape for it" after he got his cast of (when mom let him get all sweaty again...lol) He had so much fun hanging out and hiking with the big guys. We are super proud of him. This was no little hike, it was 7.4 miles...not to shabby for a 7 year old!

Grandpa Hooper, Grant and Morgan
(These pictures are out of order) I'm told that near the end Grant was starting to slow a bit, when Morgan found some snow and started a snowball fight with Grant, and it perked him right back up. He was running to get to the next patch of snow. So glad my kiddos have great uncles!!! (and aunties too)

Ryan and Grantman

Grant at a cool balanced rock.

Grant and Ryan on the hike--I'm excited to go on this one myself...I think we'll let Seth get a little older first. :)

I'm so glad my kids have a fun daddy to take them to do special stuff with him. He is always planning field trips and day hikes for us. Good times

Life goes on...

2010-03-13T13:26:00.000-08:00

So life goes on, even if I don't get around to blogging about it. Since our lives our absolutely fascinating over here at the Hooper house, I'll give ya'll a little update....lol (I really am trying to keep this up for a journal for our family, but yikes, I'm always behind.)
Beware--LONG POST...and I can't ever get the pictures to come up in the right order, so this will be a bit random. :)

For Ryan's graduation/anniversary gift, I sent him on an almost free trip to Guatemala. He's always wanted to go, he had the airline miles saved up, and his cousin was going too, so off he went. I'd have LOVED to see Tikal, but NOT LOVED the R.O.U.S.'s and other wildlife just running about NOT safely behind bars (like a zoo) (I'm deathly afraid of pretty much any animal if its loose) also I would have NOT LOVED the yucky hotel they stayed in. So this was a great "mancation" for Ryan. We missed him, but are super happy that he had a great time and got to check something of his bucket list.
Isaac is doing great. He is such a handsome young man, and keeps his mom and dad on track. We noticed that when he was reading his nose was less than an inch away from the page, so off to the eye doctor we went. Another Hooper in glasses. I think the Hooper family alone paid for the eye doc's vacation this year. (grumble, grumble) For anyone keeping track, that's 3 out of 4 so far...I'm just waiting for little Seth, I'm sure its coming)I was venting to Ryan the other night about the fact that our boys eyes are MUCH TO BEAUTIFUL to be hidden behind glasses. He (always the wiser one) pointed out that we'll keep them in glasses 'til after their missions and then get them fixed or get contacts, and THEN we'll let the little ladies see their pretty eyes. I like it! hee hee hee :)
p.s. Even glasses can't hide these beautiful baby blues...
-Also, I only referenced the glasses hiding the BOYS' eyes because Olivia doesn't have to wear hears all the time, but hers are gorgeous too. :)

Grantman got his cast off this week. The first thing he asked for after it was off was if he could run around and get all sweaty and dirty. I said you betcha!!! (Yes, the mean mom that I am, I made him stay relatively clean so his cast wouldn't get too stinky--glad I did too) Here he is jumping out of the swing at the parkSeth has been so much fun lately. He talks ALL THE TIME. He hears everything and touches his ears and says "what dat sound mama?" ."..is it a train?" He also notices airplanes and LOVES them too. Some of my favorites of his are..."uh-oh, mama my pants" (when his pants fall down--which is often) Popporn (popcorn) "pease pease cannies my hands" (what can I say, he loves candy) "crap crap" (quack quack ...hee hee) Last week he climbed out of his crib three times, so now we moved him into the big boy room and he sleeps on the crib mattress stacked on a bunch of food storage cans. It took a couple days, but now he loves his big boy bed. Only potty training left to go. (not ready yet though)

For my birthday/anniversary we took the kids to the Reid Park Zoo in Tucson. We had a great time. Seth did not disappoint with his reactions to seeing all those animals. Good times

Olivia has been very busy, but she's happy. Her arm is better. It has been frustrating for her to have to catch up a bit in gymnastics now, but I know she'll be stronger than ever in no time. School has been a bit crazy for her lately. She has been doing extra stuff for her regular class (because her teacher is making books for all the kids) besides her ALP stuff, so she hasn't had a lot of free time. Thankfully they are almost done and she'll have more time for stuff she wants to do. The other day I was sitting around looking at FB, and I look over and Olivia is reading a dictionary "for fun"...that's when you know your kid is getting smarter than you for sure! The next day I checked out a bunch of classics from the library to read...can't let her get ahead of me just yet!

My kiddos can't resist a candid photo... While we were at the zoo the kids were talking/debating on what the smartest animal was. Next came whitch was the dumbest animal. (Ryan and I were just laughing to ourselves listening to them) Then Olivia asks Ryan what the dumbest animal is. Before Ryan could say anything, Isaac chimed in that FRANKENSTEIN was the dumbest....DUH!
Gotta love it :)

We loved this zoo for the ages of our kiddos. It was cheap, totally paved, and small enough that the kids didn't complain about being tired. The animals are very close too. And most important for our kiddos, they have two polar bears--a favorite animal at our house. :)

As for me, its been busy, but its busy doing what I love, so I can't complain. Time is going by way too fast to not enjoy this sweet family of mine. For Valentines day Ryan really went overboard with flowers, a new dishwasher and a new garbage disposal. Well, I told him the dishwasher and disposal could count as Valentines...our house seems to be falling apart! I love my new dishwasher though!!! Thankfully we were only out of a working dishwasher (besides the one named Misti that lives here) for a couple weeks. If only I could get a bathroom washer...put the soap in, close the door, come back in a few hours and sparkling clean--I know, in my dreams.

11 years and counting

2010-03-06T19:59:00.001-08:00

So I've fallen WAY behind with the blog, but I'll play catch up later...its my anniversary!!!

For your viewing enjoyment I included our engagement picture. Please, no comments on my light wash Levi's. I was against them from the start, but Ryan wanted light jeans, and I didn't know yet that I needed to be in charge of what we wear. :) hee hee...that's how much I love him...I'll even wear the light washes for my hubby. lol
Since its our 11th Anniversary, here are 11 random facts about Mr. & Mrs...
1. We both LOVE LOVE LOVE Penne Rustica from Macaroni Grill. We've never even tried anything else from their menu. Why mess with perfection?
2. We like to listen/sing to Handel's Messiah while driving in the car.
3. While we were dating, Ryan would teach me the Spanish to Shakira songs (back when she only sang in Spanish) I still know it, and I still have the paper saved that he wrote the lyrics on for me.
4. We like to make milkshakes after the kids are asleep. (shhhh, don't tell)
5. We both would love to go roller blading again, but are WAY too embarrassed to ever do it.
6. We are both annoyed when advertising says that something is "free", nothing is free, it might be "at no additional charge", RARELY is it free.
7. We are both always on time...Ryan in a normal way, me VERY obsessively, but still, we are never late.....(usually)
8. We LOVE to travel and vacation
9. We are readers. Ryan is slower, but more thorough, and when he finishes it he won't read it again (besides scriptures obviously) I am faster and if I like it, I will read the same book over and over.
10. We take turns equally stealing covers. If I steal them, Ryan can take some back and I'll never wake up. If he steals them, I just go get another blanket out of the closet and then tease him about it the next day.
11. We enjoy staying home. Even when we travel, as we pull into our garage we always say its fun to go, but its fun to be HOME.

I'm grateful everyday for my wonderful hubby, but he knows that...I tell him.

--love, wife

Matching ties

2010-03-02T08:20:00.000-08:00

Wouldn't it be nice to have matching ties for all your boys including your husband?

Pack 238 has teamed up with www.thematchingtieguy.com to help our Cub Scouts raise funds!
We are selling ties in every size from newborn to adult! Now all your boys can have matching ties for church, for weddings, for Easter, for family photos or any special occasions.

Go online to view the entire selection of ties and decide what ties and sizes you want. Contact me if you'd like an order form or come to the LDS Church on Hawes Rd between Baseline & Guadalupe on March 10th from 4:30-5:30pm to order directly from the company. The Cub Scouts will deliver your order to your home.

Online these ties cost $14.99, but we are selling the exact same ties for $10! That's a $5 savings per tie! The best part is 1/2 of every tie sold goes directly to the Cub Scout Pack 238. You don't want to miss out on this special sale! Come support our Cub Scouts!

Girls day/broken arm update

2010-02-02T10:07:00.001-08:00

Olivia has been planning a "girls day" for a very long time. It all started with the father/sons camp outs. In her opinion (and mine too) its not fair that the boys get an overnight camp out together and the girls maybe get a mother/daughter enrichment night every few years. So she planned a mother/daughter day for us. It was cancelled a few times (sickness, scheduling etc.) but we finally set a date, and it worked out. We had so much fun, the only problem is that it went too quickly. This is going to have to become an overnight thing too I think. :)

Red Lobster for lunch--Liv LOVES crab. :)

Washing her puppy at build a bear

When we returned home from girls day, the neighbor boy was out playing in the driveway with a bike ramp. I knew that was going to be trouble...My boys found out and ran outside to play too. They played for a half hour or so and then came in to ask me to watch them. I go out to watch. Isaac goes up and over, I cheer. Grant goes up and then turns to see if I'm watching and his front tire slips off the top and he falls off. I saw him catch himself. He jumped up and ran to me screaming. He calmed down pretty fast, so I had him lay on the couch for a while. I kept checking on him, and his arm didn't look right. So I loaded him up and off to the ER we went. It was much busier this time with Grant than it was with Olivia. He broke his arm same place and same way as Olivia, but just one of the bones (Livvy broke both)

Over the weekend I took care of TWO broken arm kiddos. Thankfully, I am now a pro at bathing, dressing/undressing etc. so I didn't hurt Grant near as much trying to help him as I did with Olivia when she first broke her arm. And now Olivia is completely fine, no pain, just needs help with a few things. On Monday I took both of them in to the orthopedic surgeon and they took off Olivia's cast on put one on Grant man. He is doing great (he thinks its kind of cool--when its not hurting).

P.S. No more CPS jokes.... :)

Welcome Home Uncle Moragan!

2010-01-25T09:04:00.000-08:00

We were so exited to go to the airport to help pick up Morgan (Ryan's youngest brother) from his Mission. We were going to do posters, but then we decided that we didn't want to have to haul them around everywhere so we did shirts instead.

Olivia--I love Uncle Morgan
Grant--My Uncle is Mad Morgan (from Willow hee hee)
Isaac--Vote for Uncle Morgan
Seth--Uncle Morgan is MVP

Not necessarily mission related, but they made him smile, and that was the whole idea. We were joking that we are going to have to think up more things to pray for since Uncle Morgan is back safe and sound after a great mission. We've had a few slip ups and continue blessing him in his missionary efforts, but hey, we're all supposed to be missionaries right? Lately Isaac has changed his to "please bless Uncle Morgan on his miss...(pause) to find a nice girl". LOL--we've got you covered Morg.
With all the excitement with him at the airport, we didn't get a single picture with Morgan, where is my brain???? Must be the same place my sanity is hiding. :)

Kids update

2010-01-23T14:50:00.001-08:00

Isaac and Grant earned new Karate belts. They are now Green with a black stripe belts. Isaac also earned a Kata patch (for knowing the first half of his kata) and Grant earned two kata patches for knowing the whole kata. We are super proud of them. They are really having fun, and learning so much with their karate.

Its been a busy month of dr. visits for Olivia. She now has glasses to wear. She only uses them when she needs them (like to see the marker board at school) but she LOVES being able to see again. After she had them for a while I asked her how they were working out. She said they are wonderful because now at school she can look at the board and see what to do instead of having to just memorize everything the first time the teacher says it. (Maybe that's how she got so smart hee hee).

As for the broken arm... she'll get another x-ray in a little over a week, and hopefully it will be healed. Its been a long, hard, SAD six weeks. I'm proud of her though, she doesn't complain, I can just tell that she misses gymnastics SO MUCH.

A peek inside a Hooper FHE

2010-01-23T14:21:00.000-08:00

It will be a sad sad day if the kids ever stop demanding "SunBEAM" for the opening song of FHE. I love that Seth is really participating now. Too much fun. :)

Please disregard the mess, we were still in the middle of our reconstruction when we took this video. Also, please disregard the the key someone started the song in...Ryan now will mostly wait for me to start songs, so its not so high, but the kiddos aren't quite there yet...

A little late but...

2010-01-10T21:10:00.000-08:00

I don't get around to blogging as often as I should...
Thursday evening before the kids got out of school I was working on some primary stuff. I usually never go into our office after 7pm because Seth sleeps in there, but I really needed to print something, so I went in. To my horror, the ceiling was leaking water in several spots. I yelled for Ryan and we panicked for a minute or two and called the plumber. Now, 2.5 weeks later, we are almost done with all the restoration. It was such a pain to deal with the dryers and construction etc over Christmas. We replaced a big chunk of ceiling and the wall above the door, the pad under the carpet (not the carpet....bummer) thankfully Seth was fine as was all our stuff in the office, and they were able to repair the crack in our tub. Now all the workers are gone and just one last job for Ryan--replacing the drain. I can't wait to have our nice big shower back!!! We've definitely learned some lessons in patience and time management dealing with only the kids shower. :)
So that was Thursday. Friday, Olivia broke her arm, and Ryan graduated with his masters. Way too much excitement this year!
Anyhoo, amidst all the chaos we had a wonderful Christmas. Our dining room is still a maze to walk through since I haven't had a chance to put all the office stuff away yet. And we got to move out all the furniture and a Christmas tree and presents etc on Dec 23 for the carpet cleaners to come, but the kids were great sports and we had everything back in place (in the living room--dining room still a disaster) on Christmas eve.

The nativity by the Hoopers...Seth-Joseph, Isaac-lamb, Grant-Shepherd, Olivia-Mary, Mom-camera lady, Dad-narrator
Seth sat still holding his baby the whole time...just don't try to put a towel hat on his head. lol

All the gingerbread houses

Ryan and Grant's house...with chimney and gargoyle...lol

Isaac wanted to do his own this year.

Olivia would have liked to do her own, but with the broken arm, I had to help, but it was completely her design. Balcony and pool included. :)

Seeing the lights at the temple

For me, its just not Christmas 'til you go see the temple lights. They were beyond amazing, as always.

So, crazy but fun. Olivia is still waiting to try out her pretty pink roller blades. We loved having our "LAZY DAY" (this year it ended up being new year's day...only requirement is teeth brushed...heaven). We visited family, Ryan took the kids hiking a few times. I'm still sweeping up pixos and Legos. Good times. We are blessed. :)

Merry Christmas!

2009-12-22T15:08:00.000-08:00

I decided to post a family letter here...much easier than sending it with the cards.

Dear family and friends,
How are you? We are fine. (just kidding lol)
We had a wonderful year. Here's what we've been up to...

OLIVIA is doing great in gymnastics and school. She enjoys reading, singing, and piano as well. It is very frustrating for her to have a broken wrist since most of interest involve her arm. She is such a great helper at home. She is enjoying being in the 4-6 grade honor choir at school too. She is in 4th grade

GRANT is having a great year too. He does excellent in school and likes to read too. He is a green belt in karate and will be moving up soon. He did a basketball camp over the summer and had tons of fun. He also likes video games and riding bikes. Grant is in the 2-3 grade honor choir at school. I LOVE going to the concerts! :) He is in 2nd grade

ISAAC loves finally getting to go to school with Olivia and Grant as a mighty kindergartner. He is doing great and we are so proud of him. He is also a green belt in karate. He did great on his last belt test, so we are exited to see him move up. Isaac loves to play outside and ride bikes. He is a great helper.

SETH has reached the momentous 18 month age!!! He is so much fun. He loves to make as many messes as possible through out the day, but we wouldn't have it any other way. He loves music and dancing. He responds best to Mozart and the chipmunks (go figure) He can also sing back songs if you use a simple syllable instead of the words. He is a talker and great sleeper. :)

MISTI I love staying home and being a mama. I have been super busy with kids and church etc, but I LOVE IT!

RYAN just finished his masters!!! What will he do with all the extra time with no studying, homework, class and research??? :) He works hard, and plans wonderful vacations for us. Ryan has been into hiking and canyoneering this year. He is determined to climb half dome (in Yosemite) next year.

We were very blessed this year, and we are so thankful for it! We have enjoyed spending time together and with our families as well this year. We hope everyone has a wonderful Christmas and a Happy New Year.

Love,
the Hoopers

Master + Disaster

2009-12-21T15:19:00.000-08:00

He did it! He's a Master!!! We are super proud of Ryan and so glad he is DONE (at least for a while :) Also, he just had his 5th patent issue...good times.

Here is Ryan at his graduation.

Materials Science and Engineering.

The boys in there ASU stuff. So proud of dad

So that was a HUGE day for Ryan. So why were Olivia and I not there???

?
?

I was in the ER with Olivia. She fell off the monkey bars at school and broke her wrist. Poor girl. She was so brave, I know it was hurting, but she never complained, even during the x-rays. This happened the day before her gymnastics show, if you know Olivia, you'll know that is the saddest news ever to miss out on any bit of gymnastics. So sad.

When Olivia was released, we hurried over to ASU to try to catch the end of graduation, but when we got there, they were walking out.

Here we are all together. Olivia and I didn't have time to go change into our ASU stuff, so we'll have to fabricate the moment again, so I can get a picture the way I wanted it.

Thankfully Ryan's mom and dad came down to see the graduation. They took the big boys with them, so Ryan did have some fans to cheer for him there. Thanks Aunt Lori for rushing over and watching the kiddos for us so we could go to the hospital! Love ya, and we owe you big time!!!

According to Isaac...

2009-12-14T08:06:00.001-08:00

"On the first day of Christmas my true love gave to me....a cat stuck in a pear tree."

I love it! :)

Ryan

2009-12-11T13:32:00.000-08:00

So here's what my hubby has been up to lately...
Besides preparing for his LAST final for his masters, and being a great dad etc. Ryan has really been into hiking and canyoneering. This week he climbed Weaver's needle. So cool, wish I could do it!

At the top

This is Weaver's Needle from far away. (I was watching twilight the other day, and they show that when she is leaving AZ...SO COOL) :)

They camped at the top of it. Her is its shadow early the next morning

I am totally telling my self that he isn't standing on the edge of a 600 ft drop off right there...yikes!

I just like this picture. :)

Thankful

2009-12-01T10:40:00.001-08:00

Thanksgiving was wonderful. No surprise, we forgot our camera, so no pictures to show for it. Its always fun to hang out with family, and doesn't hurt that there were 28 PIES!!! either. :) So here are my thankful lists. A serious one, and the every-day-life-practical one :) neither can ever be complete because there is so much to be grateful for, but here's a taste...

MY FAMILY
Ryan- is the best. What can I say, I married UP in SO MANY WAYS!!!
Olivia- my best-est girlfriend and example. She is really as good and sweet as she appears...no put-ons with her.
Grant- my little gentleman. Always helps me, always smiles, always happy.
Isaac- Brave, concerned and faithful.
Seth- Sweet as sugar, pure joy with eyelashes!

THE GOSPEL
Heavenly Father and his Son Jesus Christ
My testimony
The Scriptures
Prophets
My kids primary teachers

EXTENDED FAMILY
We are blessed with wonderful families and are grateful for everyone one of you!

GOOD HEALTH
'nuff said

also I am thankful for....
nap time
Big Sexy Hair products :)
the stevia plant which produces natural sweeteners so I can have treats and still fit in to my size 3s :)
car seats
karate
gymnastics
inspiration
music
dancing
Christmas decorations
Penne Rustica (from Macaroni Grill)
Lost and 24--DATE NIGHTS
shoes
money to buy shoes
scented candles
Good examples
Hawaiian tropics suntan oil
Bulwark exterminating--scorpions?--GONE!
the smell of rain and clean baby
brand new crayons
snuggly pj's
vacations
Celtic women Christmas CD (how can I get in that group--I love their singing)
hugs
Ryan's LONG socks that he lets me steal when my legs hurt
memories
coupons
bubble baths
traditions
FHE

I could go on and on, but its Seth's nap time (which I am thankful for!)

Larson Reunion '09

2009-11-17T09:09:00.000-08:00

It was our turn to host the Larson Reunion. I learned (and re-learned) something important...I'm not a very good party planner--I'm a good helper, I'll bring whatever and help set up or clean up, but PLANNING...not so much. We procrastinated the whole year, and had lots of different ideas come and go. We ended up going really easy and having a pot luck at the park. Thankfully, lots came, and we had fun. Family is wonderful. And also what is wonderful is that in 9 years when I'm in charge again, Olivia will be just the right age to take over for her boring mom!!! Thanks for all the fun and help family, love ya!

Marshmallows/Dress up

2009-11-11T21:45:00.000-08:00

These past few weeks have been extra busy, but we still got some fun in too. Since Ryan had the big boys at karate and Seth was sleeping, O and I played some dress up. I have some super fun dresses (thanks to my super seamstress mom) and O really had fun trying them on. She even talked me into putting a few of them on. Here's the picture O took of me...hee hee
I couldn't figure out how to work the timer on the camera to get a picture of us both all dressed up. This was us trying to get a shot of us all fancy. I love this picture because O was giggling so much. :)

The "Belle" shot

She put her wings on for this one. So fun--

This dress was "itchy" to her, but she still wanted a picture

She LOVED this one, thought it looked like something Arial would wear

On to the marshmallows--

We have a complicated schedule that involves jobs, seating arrangements in the car, and which kid gets to choose FHE treat. Mostly I let the kids pick whatever they want for FHE. If for some reason I can't do it, then they get to choose a lunch treat (nutty bars, oatmeal cream pies etc) since they almost never get those. Anyhoo, it was Isaac's week to choose, and he wanted marshmallows. I stole an idea from the YW days and had the kids make stuff with the marshmallows in hopes that they'd make more and eat less. Well, they ate a ton of them, but we had a great time. I'll definitely do this again sometime. Lots of happy togetherness. :)

(Half of our pics of this are on our other camera, I'll post those later--very creative)

Happy Birthday Hubby

2009-11-08T21:12:00.000-08:00

This is SO LATE, but these last couple of weeks were beyond crazy for me, and this is my first chance to blog...

Happy Birthday (late) to my handsome husband!!! Also happy 11th anniversary of our engagement! (Awe) We celebrated with breakfast pizzas, filibertos, and chocolate cake. Lots of fun and LOTS OF CALORIES! I'm the luckiest gal ever to have such a super sweet husband. Here are some fun facts about Ryan

-He eats 2 peanut butter and jam sandwiches and an apple every work day for lunch. This has been going on since before we were married. He switched from honey to all fruit jam shortly after his dad got diabetes (less sugar). He also switched from a granola bar to an apple about 6 years ago. But the P.B. never has changed.

-Thru our whole married life, I've only made the sandwiches for his lunch 3 maybe four times. He likes to make them himself.

-If there's a mountain, he wants to climb it

-If there's a canyon he wants to canyoneer it. :)

-He can still do back flips

-He still sweeps me off my feet--literally

-He tells the kids stories about scientists and explorers on long drives

-He spoils me rotten! :)

-He'll hopefully have his masters in DECEMBER. wahoooooo!

Happy birthday husband, Love you!!!

Halloween

2009-11-08T20:49:00.001-08:00

Halloween was busy, but really fun. We didn't get around to carving pumpkins until Halloween morning, but it was fun to spend the morning together. This year I let Olivia and Grant use the little knives that come in the pumpkin carving kits. (yikes, the kids are growing up!) I thought they did great. Olivia made x eyes a y nose and a sideways z for a mouth. Grant made a dinosaur. Isaac drew the face he wanted and then I helped him cut it out. Ryan's pumpkin is bobo fet (sp?) Seth and I shared and stayed traditional. Good times. --note to self- don't try to take family pictures with costumes and pumpkins right before the trunk or treat--not the most cooperative when all they want to do is get to the party lol

Joni and Chachi (sp?) from Happy Days. (I know, no one got it :)

The Thing

The Hulk (Should have fixed his muscles before the picture LOL)

My little ones :)

Moon Night (he's a marvel hero)

Olivia-the pediatrician fairy

2009-11-08T17:53:00.000-08:00

You betcha I'm playing the Christmas music!

Fall Break

2009-10-24T17:44:00.000-07:00

We had a great fall break. We decided to take the big kids to Disneyland. We only had time for one day there so we decided Seth would get to enjoy some one on one time with Grandma and Grandpa (thanks again mom and dad). It was so hard dropping off Seth. We really missed him, but I'm glad we got to have a day with the big kids.

We first went to the La Brea Tar pits. They were pretty cool. It was crazy (and stinky)seeing the methane gas bubbles come up. We LOVE museums so it was a fun afternoon there. Next we went to Hollywood just to see the sights a little. That was an interesting experience. We didn't realize they have all those characters there trying to take pictures with you for tips. We must have REALLY looked liked tourists because we could hardly walk a step and another character would be there. I'm sure they target families with little boys that get excited over all the super heroes and such. Oh well, it was fun, just really crowded. I wish we had more time to look at all the hand prints out side Grauman's Chinese theater. Seeing all the history there was awesome.
The next day was Disneyland. We were there the WHOLE DAY, 9am-9pm (one of the main reasons Seth didn't come) Our kiddos LOVE all the thrilling rides, so we ran from ride to ride all day long and loved it. Thankfully the lines weren't long at all. The only problem with Disneyland is once you go, you HAVE to go again, and soon. Can't wait for the next trip!

Trash Museum

2009-10-21T12:13:00.000-07:00

(This picture has nothing to do with the post except that its of Isaac...I just think its a hilarious picture. Yes, he asked me to take it lol)

So much to do this week, but I have to write down before I forget...

The kiddos had played really good all day and consequently the house was a DISASTER. When it came time for clean ups, Isaac came to me and said "Hey mom, how about instead of us doing jobs we just turn our house into a TRASH MUSEUM!"

lol (is it bad that I did entertain the thought myself after that??? hee hee)

Isaac's wisdom

2009-10-09T10:16:00.000-07:00

A couple of weeks ago...

Isaac: Hey mom, I had a great day at school today. Know why?
Me: Why?
Isaac: Because I had lots of SCRIPTURE POWER!

(I know, be still my heart!)

This morning during scriptures...(Isaac was the first reader and only about 2 minutes into it, and after telling him to be quiet a number of times and then telling him to stop messing up my bed)

Me: Isaac, you are almost done, you have two lines left to read
Isaac: But mom, my brain is telling me that I already have enough scripture power today, so we can be done.

(At least we learned in conference that its the consistency they'll remember right???)

More New York

2009-09-27T21:37:00.001-07:00

So how much more could there be of our NY trip? SO MUCH MORE!! This is more for my journaling, but you're welcome to read too...

My absolute favorite part of our trip was the Broadway show. My SWEET husband splurged and got us amazing seats to Phantom. (Yes, yes, sure we wanted to see wicked, but we didn't realize those tickets have to purchased way in advance...and besides, we couldn't have gotten such great seats to that :) I gotta say, I know musicals aren't Ryan's favorite thing, but he's always been wonderful in that he knows that there's not much I love more than seeing a great musical, namely family, and church :) Anyway he is so supportive like that. He's been to more than his fair share of concerts, voice recitals, piano recitals etc and he goes with a great attitude and has thoughtful opinions about it afterwards. So anyway it was AWESOME! The man that played the phantom is the only guy in history to have been both the phantom and Jean Val Jean on Broadway. He stole the show. I seriously was brought to tears every time he sang. Well, basically I was crying the whole time. I loved it more than I can say. Only bummer was that I didn't get to sing anything there!!! (well, actually I'm not so sure about singing with the phantom--everyone sounded great 'til he started again and then it was like HOLY COW! that dude can SING!!!!!) Thanks sweetie for helping me check off a bucket list item. Although now I really need to go back and see more! ;-)

After our show. I loved seeing all the lights!

Ryan at times square

Me at the Majestic. My favorite seats, front row grand tier...NO TALL PEOPLE CAN SIT IN FRONT OF ME!!!!! (I know what you're thinking...stadium seats everyone can see...NOT TRUE! Tall people still sit in front of me ugh! Seriously, how dare they be so tall? J/K)

Outside the theatre. No, that wasn't our limo :( j/k lol

Halloween here we come

2009-09-27T21:28:00.000-07:00

October starts this week. I think this is the first time EVER that I don't have any of the kids costumes done yet. Time to get busy! I love the fall--the holidays are right around the corner! Olivia thinks, and I am starting to agree that the holiday season actually starts Sept. 2. That is her "birthday eve" and it officially kicks off the holidays because we are celebrating so much between now and the New Year, so why not! I will hold off on the Christmas music until Nov. 1 and that's it. :)

What we've been up to

2009-09-10T21:40:00.000-07:00

Olivia's birthday was lots of fun. I took her to build -a- bear during her lunch (she chose this instead of a friends birthday party) it was lots of fun. The boys weren't sure about all the girl stuff--not quite as exciting for them, but they loved eating the flowers off the cake, so its all good. :-)
We went to the first Steve Hooper reunion. We had lots of fun. Everyones schedules were so different that we were never all together at the same time, but we did get to see almost everyone. We ate tons of yummy food, had a treasure hunt, hay ride, and a marathon game of musical chairs (Seth's favorite...he danced the whole time lol) My sis-in-law takes much better pictures than me so when Ryan shows me how to get them off of face book to here I'll post those. Here's a few that we took. Good times

Happy Birthday Olivia!

2009-09-03T09:34:00.000-07:00

Another year down, and now I have a 9 year old. How can this be??? Olivia was SO EXCITED for her birthday. We have a fun day planned. Can't wait to get to the rest of it. I'm on the upstairs computer (Seth sleeps in the office) so I can't get any cute pictures of her, but here are some fun facts about our little Livvi Lou...
- loves animals but especially arctic animals
- level 2 - 3 in gymnastics and loving it--currently working on handstands on the beam
- wants to be a pediatrician and mommy when she grows up
- favorite colors in this order: pink, purple, green, blue
- great student
- sings in the honor choir at school and the ward choir at church and with me all the time too!!!
- favorite foods are tacos and ice cream
- LOVES LOVES LOVES going to activity days. (Thank heavens for wonderful leaders for my kiddos!!!)
- creative and crafty
- really good cook already- Last Sunday she didn't stay for choir (too much candy from primary and her bishop buck to resist) anyway, when I came home she was putting a batch of cookies in the oven. I am LOVING all her help in the kitchen!!!

Hope you have a wonderful day Olivia, love you!

Dancing and trivia

2009-09-02T13:47:00.000-07:00

Our little Seth is a dancer. When catchy music comes on he has to get up and bust a move. Too funny.

Trivia question: The song Seth is jammin' to is from the soundtrack of one of my top 10 most favorite movies EVER. Can anyone name it??? (besides my brother Eldon, its down right disgraceful if he doesn't know. ;-)

First Day of School

2009-08-24T18:44:00.000-07:00

Too many projects going on. I can't seem to stay current on the ol' blog. Here's our first day of school...a little late

Isaac with his teacher Ms. Valentino. When the bell rang he went right to his line, grabbed his backpack, and started heading into the school ALONE. I was running and yelling after him thru all the students and parents. Thankfully I caught up to him in time and now he knows walk in with his class. At least he was ready to go. It would be so much harder if he wasn't happy about it.

The kiddos on the play ground. I snapped this right before I got a major eye roll from one of them. Nothing like a picture happy mama on the first day of school. lol

The backpack shot. They were so loaded down with all the school supplies. Thankfully it's only that heavy on the first day.

Super Seth. I figure its always good to document the kids if they are ever perfectly clean--it sure doesn't last!

Kindergarten, 2nd grade and 4th grade

Thankfully they all had great days. So far we love school!!! It was crazy for me to have only Seth at home. I have started exercising in the morning while Seth naps. Who'd of thunk??? Its hard for me, but I know these kiddos love it, and so its ok.

confession...I planned on drowning my sorrows of my kids are getting too grown up too fast in a big fat butterfinger oreo blizzard while they were gone, but settled for some panda express since its hard to eat a blizzard with out Ryan...:)

New York part IV

2009-08-05T16:08:00.000-07:00

A few of the sites we saw...
The Manhattan Temple. This was so awesome. It brakes my heart that we didn't have the time to go in...just another reason we'll have to go back. It was so cool to see it right there in the middle of everything. Beautiful!
The front stoop of the Cosby's house. (Yes, this is the actual place!)

The street where Rudy Huxtable learned to ride a two wheeler. Ah, memories...

Who ya gonna call? (GHOST BUSTERS!!!!!)

The church with the hidden treasure in it from "National Treasure" --no, WE didn't find any treasure...bummer!

New York part III the museums

2009-08-04T16:32:00.000-07:00

Don't feel obligated to watch this whole thing, but I knew our moms and dads would like seeing some of it...

We went to the American Museum of Natural History and the Met. Both were amazing. We have to make another trip back there to take the kids to the Natural history museum. The Met was even more awesome, but NOT KID FRIENDLY. We are huge museum geeks so these were worth the whole trip for us.

New York part II

2009-08-04T12:25:00.001-07:00

More of our trip...
We walked about halfway across the Brooklyn Bridge. Very fun. We didn't try the time machine thing from Kate and Leopold...too dangerous!
Ryan taking down this huge bull. It was funny there were other tourists there being as goofy as us and one lady came up to us and asked Ryan if he could take a picture of me and her. So funny we are there in New York with so many sites to see and she wants a picture of me. That happened to us at the Grand Canyon too. What kind of freak show am I??? I'm telling my self that maybe its just that I look real "American" but I have my doubts. lol

Ryan and the globe. This was really cool. It was at the World Trade Center as a symbol of peace. They recovered it slightly banged up and moved it to this location 'til they finish the memorial at the WTC. They have an eternal flame there too. Really neat to see. Right after Ryan took a picture of me here we were walking away and a guy flips out his cell phone camera and starts taking pictures of me too. CREEPY. Seriously what is the deal???

On the Staten Island Ferry. It was foggy that morning, so not the best pictures, but still really fun to see.

The statue of liberty. Someday I'd like to go up to the crown, we just didn't have time on this trip.

New York part I oops I forgot something...

2009-08-04T12:17:00.000-07:00

I wanted to write down so we wouldn't forget...
As we were walking into our hotel Ryan realized that he left one of his bags in the taxi. (Anyone who know Ryan knows that this is SO NOT LIKE HIM...he has OCD big time about that kind of stuff. Me, I'd worry about but never him) We were so bummed. We told the hotel workers and they were nice but gave us the impression that its gone forever don't even try to get it back, but they helped Ryan call and make a report anyway. We went on with our evening trying to make the best of it, but pretty stressed too. While we were at the top of the ESB Ryan got a call from our taxi drivers nephew. They made plans to meet at our hotel so he could give us the bag. So by the end of the night Ryan had his bag back and was stress free, and the taxi driver had a NICE tip. Thank you honest taxi driver!!!!!!!! Our faith in humanity is restored.

New York part I

2009-08-03T11:07:00.000-07:00

Whew, what a week we've had! So much fun, and so much to post so I think I'll break it up into a few chunks...
Monday afternoon we met Ryan's parents to drop off the kiddos. (I only fought back tears 3 times on the way there, and about 5 on the way back to Mesa.) It was so weird being back at our house minus the kiddos....so quiet. We enjoyed some Red Lobster take out and some season six of 24. Good times.
We left for New York EARLY Tuesday morning. (btw I LOVE airports and flying almost as much as the vacation itself!!! Ryan's done it too much to be as thrilled as me but says I make it more entertaining because it is SO EXCITING to me lol)
The first night we took a cab to our hotel and then headed out to see some sights...

(These pics are out of order--don't know how to fix it)
A view from the top of the Empire State Building

I wanted a picture with one of the big binocular things because I remembered them from "Sleepless in Seattle"

Having fun with my hubby and enjoying the views. The elevator wait was really long so we took the stairs for the final six flights--made me feel like I climbed the whole thing.

Ryan out side of the New York public library...No sight of Slimer (from Ghost Busters) or Dennis Quaid (from the Day after Tomorrow) lol

The lobby of the ESB...Fancy!

2009-07-25T16:13:00.000-07:00

New York, here we come!

Pioneer Celebration

2009-07-23T06:54:00.000-07:00

We were in Snowflake over the weekend to for their pioneer days festivities. It was such a fun trip. On the way there we went thru Flagstaff and hiked the Lava tube. We had a great time. The kids LOVED getting to hold their own flashlights. I was nervous on the climb into the tunnel because the rocks were so sharp and slippery, but it was just me being a worry wart. They did great. I can't wait to do that again sometime--so fun!

When we got to Snowflake, my mom had spud nuts ready for the kids to frost. They loved it. They also got a practice ride in Uncle Nolan's trash can train and loved it. On Saturday they got to ride in the train for the parade and had SO MUCH FUN! After the parade they played hard with cousins and got to ride the horse with Abbie. Later that night we watched the fireworks. So nice to get away....good times

Happy Birthday Isaac

2009-07-21T07:14:00.000-07:00

Back to blogging hopefully....

This is late, but again, humongous computer issues...

Happy birthday Isaac! He turned 5 this year. I can't believe he'll be in kindergarten in a few weeks. His b-day was really fun. Donuts for breakfast and presents. Hot dogs for lunch. Chuck e Cheese for dinner with Eldon and Stefani. So fun!!! Here are some fun facts about Isaac

1. He LOVES cool whip. He wanted a big bowl of it instead of a birthday cake, but we compromised and I put a whole bowl of it on his birthday cake.

2. He is a green belt in Karate.

3. He knows WAY more than me about super heroes and there powers etc.

4. He pronounces the word "nostril" with a short "a" sound instead of the short "o" sound....try it, it sounds so funny.

5. He is an excellent bike rider.

6. He cleans his room without being asked on many occasions.

7. He can read CVC words and a lot of the high frequency words.

8. He likes being brave. He's good at protecting me when both of us are creeped out by the unidentified fury thing in the scary part of our backyard. (no worries btw, it was an old rug someone threw over the fence) :)

9. He LOVES sushi. Anytime we are in Safeway he begs me to get some. More often than not I do and then he makes sure to time it so that he gets at least the last two of them.

10. My favorite...Isaac seriously has the faith to move mountains. Anytime he hears news that seems prayer worthy to him he will go into his room and pray about it. So many times he has asked if one of us or another extended family member or friend is doing better, and when I tell him yes he says he knew they would be because he was praying for them. {LOVE IT!!!!}

Just for fun....We let the kids have soda over the 4th of July weekend. I overheard Isaac talking to Grant about root beer. First of all he pronounces it root BEAR. He was trying to figure out if root beer is made of roots, bears, or roots and bears. Hmmmmmm the world may never know! lol

Still here

2009-06-28T19:39:00.000-07:00

We are still here. We've been busy, but mostly we've had LOTS of computer issues. (UGH) I just haven't had the patience to wait for this slow computer to upload photos and such. :)

We are having a great summer so far. The kids are doing great in swimming lessons. Hopefully this is the last year for O and G. O is still in gymnastics and LOVING it. G has been doing a basketball camp. So cute to watch him try so hard. I love seeing him get better and having fun! We took a little day trip to Sedona to hike around for a while with Danny and Julee and their ADORABLE little girls. Tons of fun--pics to come if I can get this computer to start behaving itself. We also got to visit with family at our nieces birthday party in Anthem. It is always so fun to see family. We are lucky Julee and Danny are such fun party planners and can get us together!!!!

I was most sad about our computer last week for Father's day. I had a father's day blog all planned out, and it just wasn't happening, but I do want to say I'm so grateful to Ryan. He's the best hubby and Dada ever! I could spend all night listing why, but Seth sleeps in our office and I think I'm starting to wake him up so I'll be brief....Here are some random reasons Ryan rocks as the Daddy around here....
-He is forever patient with me and the kids...(just don't touch his glasses...lol)
-He loves to do fun stuff together as a family and is REALLY good at planning vacations
-He is a great example to all of us
-He lets me vent when I need to....anyone who knows me knows that doesn't happen too much, but he knows better. :) lol
-He plays with the kids
-He tells the most creative/educational stories. A typical car ride might include topics on volts vs. amps, the viscosity of stuff, electricity...more specifically how not to WASTE electricity etc.
-He takes me to the temple
-He tells jokes and fixes stuff (inside joke just for Ryan hee hee)
Anyway, thanks for everything Sweets, I love you!!

Vacation

2009-06-01T12:25:00.000-07:00

Last week we went on vacation. It was WONDERFUL to escape with the family and get away from everything for a few days. HUGE thanks to Ryans mom and dad for coming with us. They ended up being SO MUCH HELP. I don't know if we could have done it with out them, plus hurray for fun company to enjoy it with!!!

We left Monday morning and drove and drove and drove.....etc Tuesday we went to the Sequoia National Park. We went on some hikes and saw some awesomely HUGE TREES! We even got to see a tiny baby bear and then its mom came out too. That was so cool to see. They weren't even that far away and no fences between us like a zoo. Just us and the bears. (A little scary too, but mostly just awesome:) Wednesday and Thursday we went to Yosemite National Park. This was amazing as well. We went on hikes again and saw more awesomeness. The kiddos were so great on the hikes. The next day when all of us grown ups were SO SORE the kiddos were bouncing around same as always. That made me feel really old because I was definitely NOT bouncing around. lol So fun to get away, so NOT FUN to do the laundry aftermath, but totally worth it.
Heres some (many many pics) of our fun...

Next up....NEW YORK!!!!

Happy Birthday Seth!

2009-05-30T10:48:00.000-07:00

Happy Birthday to my sweet baby boy! I can't believe he's one! Seth is growing up so fast. He is walking across the room pretty good now, but will still crawl when he's in a hurry. He can say a few words and LOVES peek-a-boo, and monkeys swinging in the tree, and sunbeam and can do the actions to them too. We love having our little Seth man he brings so much joy to our home.

No more school, no more patch

2009-05-24T13:49:00.001-07:00

I'm a little late but...

We are SO HAPPY to have summer break here. Here are the top reasons why...
1. More time to chill with the kiddos
2. Swimming!
3. Grant can now take a break from his patch for a while. We'll see how it goes. He was such a good sport to wear one for 6 WEEKS and he didn't complain once, however I could tell they were VERY PAINFUL to take off.
4. No more piles of sand from wherever the kiddos decide to take their shoes off!!!!!!! (I'm THRILLED WITH THIS!!!!)
5. VACATIONS!!! - more to come on those later.
Last day of patch bliss

Last day of school

Busy...

2009-05-16T17:22:00.000-07:00

We've been busy these past weeks. I thought I'd just post the pics of everything for the grandmas in one slide show to save time. (Ambitious eh?)
I took a bunch of pictures of Seth just to document that at one time during his almost year of life he was CLEAN. Freshly bathed, hair combed, clean clothes...it doesn't last. lol He is taking 3+ steps at a time, walking will be here soon.
Olivia had her last honor choir concert of the year. It was a great show, they even did a song with three-part harmony. LOVE IT!!!!
Grant and Isaac had there belt ceremony and now are officially GREEN BELTS! I'm super proud of them. Grant's technique and form are really improving, and Isaac is doing so well to remember all the stuff for the test at just 4 years old. Love my big boys. :)
We also went to the Arizona Science Center with the kiddos last week. It was pretty fun, especially the weather demo. So anyway picture overload.

p.s. (Just for braggin') ... this past week I had ALL the kiddos with me in the store to pick up a few things. When we got to the car I unlocked it and while I was buckling Seth my Granters opened the trunk and took care of ALL the groceries for me! I didn't even ask him too. I almost cried. I can't believe he's getting old enough to really be a good "gentleman" and help me out like that. Good times.

Early Mother's day gift

2009-05-03T19:26:00.000-07:00

Proof! He does love me!!! (he is such a dada's boy:)

Ode to SHOES

2009-05-03T17:44:00.000-07:00

I LOVE shoes. I prefer having lots of cheap CUTE shoes than just a couple of expensive ones. Right now I don't have too many just because its harder to get out shopping with four little ones and because its tight times right now...(so sick of allllllllll the economy talk, when will it end???) and because Ryan hasn't had to travel for almost a year which has been WONDERFUL, but I have no excuse for my I'M SAD RYAN IS ON THE OTHER SIDE OF THE WORLD FOR I DON'T KNOW HOW LONG, BUT NEW SHOES WILL MAKE IT A LITTLE EASIER shoe shopping.
So anyway, I NEEDED to go shoe shopping. This is one of my favoritest (sp? word??) things. I shoe shop all the time but just look and not buy. But now I had an excuse. We are going on vacation later this month and my current sneaks give me blisters if I wear them too long. (elastic stretched out from wearing them 10 months preggers and swollen as big as a whale, and yes I said elastic...kid shoes people...) (Is it bad that I'm a bit grateful for this?;) Here's the problem though, I needed functional shoes, not necessarily CUTE shoes. That almost seems like a waste of money to me. Why buy shoes if they're not ridiculously cute!? But I don't want to spoil the vacay with blisters so I get functional ones. They are still pretty cute, but its slim picking in my size. Oh well.
I get home with my new shoes + shoes for Grant, Seth, and another pair for me (BOGO!). I LOVE LOVE LOVE my "CUTE" pair, and I like fine my functional pair. I can't wait to wear them both so the next day I wear my cuties. I don't know what it is, but having cute shoes to wear made me want to look nicer too. I spent a lot more time on hair and makeup and wore jewelry too! It made me feel bad that I need new super cute shoes to want to dress up nice, but what can you do? A girl's got the right to be lovin' her shoes...

For the inquiring minds...here's the CUTE, not practical
And my no blisters functionals... (I hope they aren't too young for me. Oh well, too late now)

Eavesdropping

2009-04-27T10:03:00.000-07:00

On the way to school today this is what I heard the kiddos talking about...

Olivia: When I grow up I want to be a famous pediatrician and a mommy.
Grant: Oh, well when I grow up I'm gonna be a chemical engineer like dad.
Isaac: Well I want to be a SHARK when I grow up.
(a few moments later)
Isaac: Wait! Dad likes to EAT SHARKS! I don't want dad to eat me, maybe I should just be a fire fighter instead.
Grant: Yeah, that's probably safer...

LOL Dreaming big!

Happy Birthday Grant

2009-04-23T19:43:00.000-07:00

Grant turned 7 today. In honor of his birthday here are 10 fun facts about Grant...

Grant...

1. can have a intelligent conversation about which super hero beats which and explain why. Ones I've never even heard of. Ask him sometime, you'll see.

2. can name every state in the USA. He learned this when he was 4.

3. eyelashes are soooooooooooooooo lonnnnnnnnnnnnnnng. ;)

4. is a yellow belt in Karate.

5. loves reading.

6. loves video games.

7. tries really hard to choose the right.

8. always has thoughtful questions to ask.

9. loves riding his bike. He will usually only ride as fast as he can. No leisure rides.

10. has a great sense of humor

Just the tip of the iceberg. We love you Grant, Happy Birthday!

Cake Drama

2009-04-23T08:47:00.000-07:00

All growing up my mom would always make whatever we wanted for our birthday cake. It was totally our choice. Whatever we wanted to think up she'd do. Even if it was a pie instead! When we got older sometimes she'd bake the cake and let us do the decorating. That was SO MUCH FUN. I'm TRYING to keep that tradition going as best as I can even though my only experience in cake decorating was a my older birthday cakes that I decorated, a few YW activities growing up, and now decorating my kids cakes. They have come up with some doozies (sp?) too, for example Olivia's pink and yellow WEDDING cake, transformers, basketball, cookie monster...
So anyway, Grant originally wanted a Thing (or is it THE Thing?) cake, but he wanted his decorations to match and they didn't have those and so he changed his mind to spiderman. So yesterday I bake the cake along with 30 cupcakes for his class. Then after I get Seth down for his nap I decide to really be organized and hurry and decorate the cake before he wakes up. BIG MISTAKE! Note to self: Never try to decorate a birthday cake when you are in too big of a hurry because you do stupid things!!!! I forgot to level the cakes so they stack up more sturdy, I forgot to make the frosting blue, and I was being lazy and thought I could decorate it with the can of frosting from the store. It was awful!! It was all lopsided and even though the cake was COMPLETELY COOL, the frosting wouldn't stick on to it. It just slid off everywhere. I was trying to do the sides and when I got back around to where I started, the frosting in a pile on the bottom of the cake plate. UGH! I freaked out for a little bit and then called my mom to vent about it. Then I put another cake in the oven to bake and dumped cake #1 down the disposal.
Cake #2 went MUCH better. I remembered to level it and I used whipped cream frosting and I even remembered to dye it blue. It still didn't turn out perfect or the way I would have liked it. But its how my Grantman wanted it so here it is. Lessons learned: Don't procrastinate, don't use the store frosting!!

P.S. Happy birthday my sweet Granters. More to come on him later...

Easter Sunday

2009-04-12T19:14:00.000-07:00

Today was a great day. We took a few pictures of the kids in their new Easter Sunday clothes. We kind of had to rush that because I needed to get to church early for prelude (organ subbing). After church we ate and had fun being a family. Yay for wonderful holidays!

This is mostly so the grandmas and grandpas can see the kiddos cute Easter clothes...

The girls

The boys

The kiddos :)

Easter fun

2009-04-10T10:16:00.000-07:00

Happy Easter! We have been celebrating all week. We went to the Easter Pageant earlier this week. We sat closer than we'd ever been before. As always it was awesome. Me and the kiddos were going to sign up for it this year, but somehow missed the audition dates. Hopefully next year we can do it. We decorated Easter eggs today (Friday) since there is no school. Thankfully no die spills on my kitchen counter, and thankfully Seth took a little nap while all this fun was going on and woke up just in time to get in the picture.
Here's the loot. I had to take a picture of the eggs so they could always remember them after I had mentioned to the kids that we'd be eating some of them. That is such a hard thing for me every year. We mess up our kitchen making the eggs, then we either have to eat them or throw them away in a few days. I still do it, but I stopped feeling guilty about trying to get everyone to eat them before they go bad. Now I figure I bought them on sale, and I'd pay WAY more than that price NOT to have to eat them! I like an occasional deviled egg and a small serving of potato salad, but enough is enough.

The kiddos with their favorite eggs.

I gave Seth one of the eggs that wasn't died...straight to the mouth it goes. At least its not covered in die and glue and glitter!

(FYI) before I get tons of questions about it, yes that is a patch on Grant's eye. He has to wear one for a whole MONTH in hopes that it will make his weak eye stronger. Yesterday he came in crying because some of the neighbor kids were calling him a pirate. Next week he starts wearing it all day at school. Wish us luck, it may be a LONNNNGGGGG month. poor kid.

Olivia with some of the multitude from the Easter pageant

The boys with a "knight" (Isaac's words). lol

Isaac's face + really big rock = ...

2009-04-02T10:21:00.000-07:00

GUILT for me, and a HUGE bonk for my little guy.

Shortly after dinner Isaac came in crying. I gave him a hug, and told him to he could rest on the couch if he was tired of playing outside. Because he was crying I really couldn't understand what he was saying. Something about a ball and his face...Grant and Isaac fight pretty much daily over this little ball they like to throw up in the air and then kick it, so I thought this was just another fight. He looked fine to me and so I really didn't pay it much attention after that. So many times I've thought about buying another ball so they'd each have one but I don't because either 1. they will fight over who gets the "new" ball, or 2. I feel like I'm rewarding their fighting with a new toy. So I've kind of been waiting to get two new balls when I catch them doing a good job sharing. ANYWAY, I assumed it was another tantrum over the little ball.

(Side note...both Grant and Isaac were extremely dirty. One of the dirtiest I've ever seen for them. And they were only playing out in the drive way, no mud or anything--time to hose down the driveway I guess. I didn't say anything about it because I knew they'd play outside 'til bath time so let em' have fun and get a little dirty. That is why I never saw his giant ouchie.)

That was the last of it 'til I came into the bathroom to get after Isaac because he was taking so long in the shower. That was when I saw his face CLEAN and his HUGE goose egg and bruises. He was standing in there crying because Ryan saw it a little earlier and thought he didn't wash his face and sent him back to the shower to finish. I felt SO BAD. Poor little guy. He tried to tell us and we didn't listen. When we asked him what happened the crying started again, so we finally got Grant to tell us the story...

They were playing NICELY together and then got the ball stuck up in our tree. They tried to get it down with a stick, but it was too short. So Grant grabbed the biggest rock he could find to throw straight up over them to try and knock the ball down. So the ball is still in the tree and the rock found Isaac's face on the way down. OUCHIE!!! Nobody did anything wrong, just an accident, and a poor little kid who didn't get any more than a quick hug for it. I LOVE motherhood more than I can ever say, but GUILT I really think I could do without!!!

I tried to get a shot of how much his forehead bonk protruded, but these were the best I could get with our bad lighting. They are even more colorful today!

By the time I took this picture he was feeling a little more loved and started having fun with it. He was asking me if he should look sad or smile for the picture. I told him he could do whatever he wanted. This was the face he came up with. lol

Tagged

2009-03-20T16:12:00.000-07:00

Here are the rules: Go to your documents/pictures Click on the 6th file Click on the 6th picture Blog about it Tag 6 people
I also got the 4th file, 4th folder tag, so here goes...

I took my kiddos pictures on MLK day and I think most of them turned out pretty good. However, my smiley guy Seth was NOT having a good day. I couldn't get a smile out of him for anything. The ONE time I did finally get a smile, I took the picture mid blink. So frustrating! Cute baby though. :)
Isaac and Grant sporting their new guis (sp?). And just earned YELLOW belts. They are still in Karate and doing pretty well. Isaac is by far the youngest yellow belt, but his heart is in it, and that's what counts.

I tag anyone who wants to do it!

So sweet and thoughtful..

2009-03-11T14:20:00.001-07:00

My favorite thing about my birthday is watching my kids sneaking around preparing to "surprise" me. Usually it is some sort of surprise breakfast in bed with home made cards or something. This year I was excited because they were busy making and wrapping/re wrapping stuff for a couple of weeks before. It was fun to be excited, and truly SURPRISED! I guess my kiddos are getting big enough to be able to keep a secret. (I'm not sure I'm ok with that or not yet.) Anyway, here they are with all their presents for me.

Olivia made me a beautiful card with a little book in it. So sweet I was fighting back tears the rest of the morning. Grant wrapped me up some BOY diapers inside the box of chex. This was very thoughtful, because my kids are so offended that the in a box of pampers there are boy and girl characters on them and it makes them so upset whenever Seth is wearing a girl character diaper. Isaac did his shopping in our pantry. He wrapped up a can of Cream of Mushroom soup, and a half eaten box of Honey bees. He also gave me a little stuffed animal of his. I am so proud of my kiddos to be so thoughtful and creative. Isaac was a little bummed that I didn't eat my cream of mushroom soup for lunch that day, but I told him I was saving it for my favorite casserole and he was ok with that. At least we got to enjoy the rest of the box of Honey Bees. Ryan gave me and O tickets to a musical, and I also got cards from family. Thanks so much everyone. I love ya!

10 years and counting

2009-03-05T19:24:00.000-08:00

I am WAY too much of a cryer to get sappy and talk about all the wonderful things my hubby does, but I'm the happiest gal you'll ever know. So here are 10 random memories...

1. Laser tag. (This one is mostly for Ryan, Vanessa, and me) hee hee

2. Graduating from EAC. I was 7 months pg and still as sick as I could be.

3. Making heart shaped waffles on the bathroom floor. (our first apartment was TINY)

4. Cheering for Ryan at ASU graduation. (I can't wait to do that again hopefully soon!!!)

5. The Ford Taurus (UGH!!!)

6. Having 4 babies!

7. The Baby Tenda seminar (was anyone else scammed into going to that???)

8. Potatoes and eggs with cheese on top (our breakfast almost everyday 'til it started grossing me out while I was pg with Isaac)

9. Moses and the frogs bed time story (this one is for the kids...somehow this story has strayed slightly from the biblical one it started out as :)

10. Eating sushi with Ryan's wasabi mix at our beach front table in Cancun--yummy I could go back today....

Happy times. Love you, husband!

Updates

2009-03-03T13:27:00.000-08:00

Here's the latest news from our house...

The AFTER pic of Seth's hair cut. This is actually his third haircut, but I cut 2.5 in. off this time. The saddest thing I did all week by far. Sorry the after pic is first. Someday I'll figure blogger out, but its not today.

Here is the before. Don't mind the sweat, tear, boogers, and food face. Its hard to keep a little guy happy for that long.

Seth also reached 9 months! I can't believe my little guy is that old already. Why can't they be 1 week old for a year or two, and then start growing up???? He is such a little sweetie. He is FINALLY saying mama. (He's been saying dada for months...so NOT FAIR! I had to keep reminding him who went through three epidural sticks and then it had to be turned off for this little guy to get her, but I digress.) Seth is learning how wonderful getting into stuff is. His favorite is Dada's work laptop. He is pure sugar, and we adore him!

Grantman has lost 2 teeth. He finally got to get his name added to the loosing teeth club! He is growing up too fast.

Shopping lists

2009-02-28T14:25:00.000-08:00

I love that some of my kiddos are old enough to write. This means while I'm doing something upstairs, I can have one of them go write something on the list as soon as I think of it. Then I don't forget, because its obvious I can't remember stuff unless its written down, and even then I'll be lucky to get out of the store with it. Anyway, O and G like this responsibility and take the liberty to add other items to the list they think I should get. Reminds me of the days I'd want something and would tell my mom "just write a check!"

For those not used to 1st grader hand writing, I'll translate...
spoons
drano
(these were the two things I asked them to write for me)
pet turtle
cream soda
nachos
hermit crab
Jello
sausage pizza
toys
go to the drag races
tickets to Disneyland
s'more poptarts
ice cream

For the record, I did get the nachos and jello. Gotta let them have a little fun right?

Extreme Bedroom Makeover... Before

2009-02-20T10:58:00.001-08:00

A while back, my sweet SIL Michele offered me her daughter's bedroom stuff since she was going to get a more grown up bedroom. We were thrilled. Olivia was so excited to get to redo her room. We had never finished it from when we moved here, and then life with little brothers REALLY took its toll on her poor bedroom. Isaac had learned at a very early age that when mommy is doing voice lessons is the best time to write with blue dry erase markers all over EVERYTHING. So Liv has put up with yucky walls and such for quite some time. Anyway, we had fun planning the new room. Here are the befores....I cringe even posting these, and I didn't make her clean up her room just for the before pics when we were just going to be moving everything out anyway, so excuse the mess.

Extreme Bedroom Makeover.... After

2009-02-20T10:36:00.001-08:00

This took WAY LONGER than it should have. We had everything planned, then everyone got sick and Seth cut another tooth in, so no sleep. Then after I was at least 75% done, I decided that some of the paint colors were all wrong, so I had to start almost completely over.

This is the same dresser as the before pic. My mom got it for me at a yard sale when I was younger. I repainted it and put on the new drawer pulls from Shelly, and I think it looks great. I also painted some picture frames, and the bow shelves to match the new decor. I still don't have the room totally decorated, but at least she can move back in. And she LOVES it. Thanks so much Nolan, Michele, and Shelly, We love you!!!

Still here

2009-02-15T18:49:00.001-08:00

I feel like I haven't updated this forever. I've had a few too many projects going on. More about those later. We had a fun weekend this week. We went to Central to go to the Gila Valley Temple ground breaking. We ended up actually watching it from a Stake Center because Seth was still sick, and I didn't want to risk him getting sicker sitting out there in the cold. It was still so neat to see, and great for my kids to see too. The HUGE bummer was that we didn't get to shovel some dirt since we weren't actually there, but better that Seth not end up WAY SICK. Anyway, it was a fun weekend letting the kids explore at G and G Hooper's. Those cows don't need to eat for a week after how much my boys fed them over the weekend.

Olivia sang in Central ward Sacrament meeting. That was neat for me. She did the same song in our ward, and Grandpa Hooper wanted her to do it in his ward too. I'm glad she got to sing again. So fun.

My sweet hubby surprised me with a bouquet of flowers on Feb. 12. I didn't think I'd be getting any this year since we'd be in Central, but he thought to do it earlier. So sweet, made my day. I'm so thankful for my wonderful hubby who not only puts up with me, but spoils me rotten too! How did I get so luck????

Recipe

2009-02-03T08:00:00.000-08:00

I was in a hurry when I posted about the dessert sushi. Here is the recipe...

Mix up a batch of rice crispy treats, but don't add all the cereal so its easier to work with. CAREFULLY open up a fruit roll up and spread the rice crispy over it. Put a couple of licorice strands in the middle and then roll it all up. If the rice crispy treat is gooey enough it will hold just fine. Trim off the ends if they look bad, and slice very carefully into sushi size pieces.

Dessert Sushi

2009-01-31T10:47:00.000-08:00

Olivia and I love watching the food network. One time we saw Rachel Ray make "sushi" out of candy. We knew that would be a fun recipe to try sometime. This past week was Olivia's turn to bring a treat to activity days, so we decided we would try and make it. It turned out so cute and it was pretty easy too! The hardest part was unwrapping the fruit roll ups without tearing them.

8 months and on the move

2009-01-27T12:39:00.000-08:00

My little guy hit 8 months. I can't believe it. He has one tooth, is clapping and pulling up to things, loves baths, eating, and his big bros and sis. He HATES it when you take something away from him, and he will hold a grudge over it too. He sure tries hard to crawl. So far he either just rolls where ever, or pull with his arms and sometimes use one leg, but not both. Too funny! I will hopefully get to update here with some crawling breaking news in a few days, who knows. We love our baby Seth!!
By the way, Ryan and his HUGE set of keys is how we got each of our kiddos crawling. They would never do it for me, but I guess dad's giant set of keys is just too enticing. Seth just started last night, and it was only for the keys.

Look out world, they're YELLOW belts!

2009-01-18T19:32:00.000-08:00

Grant and Isaac have been taking Karate for a few months. On Friday they received their yellow belts. They are really having fun and doing well in it--minus the few times they tried to Karate each other or their sister. I think now we are going to have to break down and buy them their guis (sp?) so they can wear their awesome yellow belts with them.

2009-01-16T10:38:00.000-08:00

Over Christmas break we went with some friends to the wild life museum and the titan missile museum in Tucson. It was a really fun day trip. This was our second time to the animal museum, and it was still so much fun. My kiddos LOVE museums, but this one is really really fun, and a little more hands on. (when else can you be that close to a polar bear and live to tell about it???) It was nice to get out of the house for a day too. Good times!

The things Isaac will say...

2009-01-13T19:40:00.000-08:00

I'm so behind in posting stuff, but before I forget I wanted to write down a little more of the wisdom of Isaac.

Isaac: (In a really WHINY voice) Daaaaaaddd, Grant is being a tattle-tale!
Ryan: (eyes role, stifled laugh)

Isaac: Mom, I know whats boys and whats girls.
Me: (...YIKES....)
Isaac: Boys are awesome and brave and strong and cool. Girls are Sparkly and cute right???
Me: You betcha!! (whew, that was a close one)

Christmas

2009-01-02T14:13:00.000-08:00

Christmas this year was WONDERFUL! It was a great month. I'm sad to see it go. We went to the Hooper Christmas party. That was loads of fun. Ryan was given an obsessive compulsive action figure, a cat poster, and an I heart Kobe shirt. Lets just say Ryan's family is very talented when it comes to the gag gifts. LOL It was fun to see everyone and let the kids play and as always, there was tons of delicious food!

Christmas eve was a nice quiet day at home for us. We did crafts, made cookies for Santa, played games, watched home movies, made gingerbread houses, had a taco dinner feast, read/acted out the nativity, walked around the neighborhood, and read 'twas the night before Christmas. Mostly we just tried to have fun with the kids so the day would go by fast for them. Isaac told me that he was going to be his "goodest behave" that day. Grant readied his B.O.M. for Santa. He wrote his testimony in it and everything. Olivia also wrote Santa a note encouraging him to read it. Poor Isaac took a nap at 4pm on Christmas eve. When it was time for bed he was still wide awake. He was trying so hard to go to sleep, but was so excited. I think he finally went to sleep around 9:30 or so (for my kiddos, that is just about as late as midnight).

We told our kids that if they woke up during the night they could sneak into our room to see what time it was, and as long as the first number on the clock said 5 or higher they could wake us up. Grant was the only waker-upper. I heard him a few times, and then I could tell someone was standing by me, but I was still asleep. He was standing there watching my clock It must have been 4:58 or 4:59, because right at 5am he yelled Merry Christmas. He then ran to wake up O and I. I heard Isaac shout WOOHOO! when Grant woke him up. Then Isaac came in and said that he "slept in heavenly peas". LOL Eldon and Stefani came over to watch our Christmas morning. It was really fun to have company and see there reactions too!

Later Christmas day we drove to Snowflake. It was again loads of fun and laughs, and ridiculous amounts of delicious food. We had a fun white elephant party where we tried to re-gift Ryan's OCD action figure, but he still ended up with it. (Could that be a sign??? J/k hubby...I don't think an engineer could NOT be at least a little OCD!) The next morning it Snowed, and the kids were thrilled.

Thanks everyone for all the gifts, laughs, fun, and memories! Can't wait 'til next year!!!

Temple lights

2008-12-18T12:27:00.000-08:00

Its just not Christmas to me 'til we go see the temple lights. We love it every year! We also saw all the different countries' nativity displays and Luke II. We loved everything.

Polar Express Party

2008-12-16T12:21:00.000-08:00

I gave the kids a Polar Express party this year. They were so excited for it. They were so sweet and cute and helpful getting ready for the party. (Great way to get the house cleaned up without complaints!!!) We had lots of junk food and served hot chocolate during the hot chocolate song. It was so much fun, and really easy for me (as I am a great party goer and not so great party planner).
All the kids came in their jammies, they looked so cute!

We covered the furniture and floor with blankets so we wouldn't have to stress about spills.

Good times!

Sleeping in

2008-12-16T09:50:00.000-08:00

Since the weather has been cooler, and the sun doesn't rise so early, my kiddos are having a harder time waking up in the mornings (same for me too!) . I had told them all week that on Saturday we wouldn't wake them up and they could sleep in a little. They were really excited for this. I don't think they thought for even a second that this was a nice way for ME to get to sleep in. Anyway, my sweet little Grant comes into my room EARLY Saturday morning...

Grant: (loudly whispering) Mom....Mom?.....MOM!!!

Me: (jolting awake worried that I'm going to get puked on or something) what Grant?

Grant: Can you please tell dad not to wake me up because I want to sleep in?

Ryan and I giggled about that for about ten minutes and then gave up and got out of bed to start the day.

By the way, everyone that did get to sleep in was still up by 6:30. LOL

I guess I need to rethink my mom wants to sleep in strategy for next Saturday!

Gym show and choir concerts

2008-12-13T14:41:00.000-08:00

Grant had his first grade concert this week, and Olivia had an honor choir concert and a gym show this week. Our much neglected video camera finally got some good use! The kiddos did great at their shows. I LOVE getting to watch and cheer them on.

Grant's show was 'Twas the Night Before Christmas, so the kids all got to wear their jammies.

Olivia after her show

Here is Olivia doing her bar routine at her gym show. This was my favorite routine at this show.

Christmas excitement

2008-12-07T19:15:00.000-08:00

We put up our Christmas decorations the Saturday after Thanksgiving. It was fun, and then long and hard, and then fun again. It took most of the day, but the kiddos were really good to help out. Its hard for me to find the balance between me wanting everything to go up in a really organized way, and the kids who want to dig through the boxes to find the things THEY are excited to put up. I think I did better this year and let the kids run the show a little more. I mean does it really matter if we hang stockings before putting out the calendars? The only thing I insisted was that they had to wait 'til I put the lights on the trees before they could hang ornaments. They were OK with this once I explained how we don't want to see the cord, just the pretty stuff. Anyway, I am very thankful to be a mom and have a sweet hubby, and wonderful little cuties to share the holidays with. They keep Christmas magical and exciting. They wanted to sleep down stairs in the living room that night with the Christmas trees as the night light. I loved that they wanted to do that. I remember getting to do that as a kid and it was so fun to just look at the beautiful Christmas tree. Good times!

Thanksgiving

2008-12-06T20:52:00.000-08:00

Yeah me for FINALLY getting around to our Thanksgiving. We had a great time in Central with Ryan's family. We are extra THANKFUL this year that we didn't get the stomach bug that plagued the Hooper Thanksgiving festivities this year. We still had fun and the kids played so hard they were begging to go to bet at 7:15. That is a good day! We forgot to take pictures at our dinner, but here are Seth and one of his cutie cousin Sadie. They look so sweet, we had to get a photo session in! Notice Seth's shirt. More to come on that later...

Squash

2008-11-29T19:34:00.000-08:00

Seth tried his first food this week (besides rice cereal). Here's his reaction to the first tastes of squash....not all that different than his Daddy's reaction to squash even now! lol

We are Thankful

2008-11-23T15:06:00.000-08:00

I asked everyone (minus Seth) to say 10 things they were thankful for and no other coaching. It was hard to only name ten. This is what we came up with...

Isaac is thankful for:
Doing what mom says me to do, elephants, house, church, when we go to tithing, building temples, Carter feels better, our computer, Seth and phones

Grant is thankful for:
Family, food, house, computer, Uncle Morgan on his mission, Heavenly Father, earth, toys, glasses, school

Olivia is thankful for:
Family, animals, earth, books, plants, food, our house, Holidays, friends, the gospel, colors, the temple and school

Misti is thankful for:
Family, Being a Mom, my testimony, temples, the gospel, our country, our home, modern medicine, sweet husband and good health

Ryan is thankful for:
Family, food, good health, smart kids, house, almost done with grad school, temples, the gospel, good weather and loving wife

Lashes

2008-11-23T14:42:00.000-08:00

I LOVE these lashes! What a sweet baby we have!! ;)

Catching up again

2008-11-22T19:59:00.000-08:00

Where has November gone??? It's almost Thanksgiving! We've been busy but having fun too.
First of all we have a new nephew! Congrats Lori and Elliot. Their little Carter is so cute and sweet and tiny. I don't have a picture of him yet because he was in the hospital for a while, but there will be plenty to come. I was so shocked to see a tiny newborn again. I didn't realize how BIG my little guy is getting. That tiny stage just goes by too fast.

Last weekend my parents were in town for two of my nephews' football game. It was fun to hang out and shop and giggle. I took O, G, and I to my nephews' football game. It was so fun to cheer for the LOBOS again. I was teaching my kiddos the fight song on the way to the game so they would be able to sing along. They were so good at the game. I was a bit nervous to take them by myself (Ryan stayed home with Seth) but they had a great time.

I also took the kids to the first ever Boulder Creek Idol. Again the kids had a blast. They thought it was so funny seeing their teachers acting so crazy. At the end Santa came. Isaac ran so fast up there to see him. I think he made it in at fourth in the line (which was LONG). It was a super fun night, and a great fundraiser (much better than the $14 tub of cookie dough...are you kidding me!!!)

Lemonade/Hot Chocolate sale

2008-11-09T12:55:00.000-08:00

Saturday was our community's garage sale. My kiddos took advantage of this and set up their first Lemonade and Hot Chocolate stand. They did a great job. They made signs for it the night before. Olivia took care of the money and serving the customers. Grantman held one of the signs up as people were driving or walking by to bring in the customers. Isaac wanted to sell toys instead, so he picked out a few and sat by them. It was a little hairy at first when people were only buying hot chocolate and not any toys from Isaac. But then thankfully he had a few customers as well and then he couldn't have been happier about the whole thing. People were so generous. The kids got three times the money in tips than from actual sales. They got pretty good at looking at people walking by with the sad puppy dog eyes. Grant would turn so that they could read his sign clear until they past us. It was so funny, they were excellent at getting the sympathy/cute sales. I'm excited for next year. We will expand and add cookies and brownies too. Good times.
Isaac consoling himself with hot chocolate since he hadn't made a sale yet. (yes those are his sandals and its November, We never stop wearing our summer shoes!)

Open and ready for business

Granters in charge of advertising

Olivia - customer service

Happy Halloween!!

2008-11-02T14:10:00.001-08:00

We had a really fun Halloween this year. Olivia dressed up as Shawn Johnson (Olympic gold medalist on the beam), Grant was Captain America, Isaac was a robot, and Seth was the Pillsbury dough boy. I thought the kids looks so cute in their costumes. I love getting them ready for Halloween. So exciting.

Happy Birthday Husband!

2008-10-30T09:10:00.001-07:00

I know its a day early, but before Halloween gets too crazy with parades and class parties and trick-or-treating, I just wanted to tell my awesome hubby happy birthday! Here are a few of my favorite pictures of him. (don't worry Ryan, I didn't post a single cowboy picture hee hee!!)
The hunky football player

Chunky baby!

One of the many castles on his mission

In Gibraltar

The Alhambra

You are THE BEST husband and daddy ever! Thanks for EVERYTHING. We love you!!

Grant the Missionary

2008-10-26T15:01:00.000-07:00

Grant was reading 'Twas the Night Before Christmas and he came to the part of "a pipe he held tight in his teeth and the smoke encircled his head like a wreath." He was really upset by this. He asked me why Santa was smoking. I was really caught off guard by this and was trying to figure out how to answer that. Then before I could say anything he said maybe Santa hadn't heard about the Word of Wisdom yet. Then he asked me if on Christmas Eve we could leave a copy of the Book of Mormon with Santa's cookies so he could learn about our church and that Heavenly Father doesn't want us to smoke. (This is where my heart bursts with joy!!!) Now I can't wait for Christmas Eve because we have an extra special gift for Santa from my sweet Grant.

Rock Band at Eldon's

2008-10-21T13:14:00.000-07:00

Last week we got to visit Eldon and Stefani a couple of times. It was too funny watching everyone rocking out at rock band. I had to take a few pittures.

Grantman plays it steel guitar style. He was really good at it.

What a sweet Uncle to help Olivia!

I had to get my dad rockin' out too, but as cool as rock band is, it's no match for when my dad or bros play and sing with a real guitar--one of my all time favorites!

If they counted points for dancing with the singing I think Olivia could have made it to expert. I LOVE the lost/deep concentration look on my hubby's face. He was a really good sport to put up with my giggling. Thanks Eld and Stef for all the fun!

On another note, Isaac is still keeping us on her toes...All morning he kept talking about Cameros (sp?)...

Isaac: Oh Mom, check out that awesome Camero!

Me: I don't see it.

Isaac: Its this one here.

Me: Oh that isn't a Camero, its a Toyota.

Isaac: WHAT!!! Where? Someone drives a toy-yoda! I've never seen a star wars car!

It took me a while to figure out that he instantly heard Yoda. That's Ryan's boy for sure!

Craftiness

2008-10-18T22:21:00.000-07:00

Olivia and I have been busy this fall break. We made a bunch of bows--my new favorite thing to do right now! And Olivia made a pillow case for one of her goals for her Faith in God award. I think she did a great job. She picked out the fabrics all by herself. She thought the green made everything "pop". Then I helped her pin it, and then she did the sewing. I was surprised how well she did. I sat right by her the whole time for safety reasons, but she was handling the sewing machine really well. So fun, it will be hard when school starts up again next week. I guess we'll have to plan to do more over Christmas break!

My boys were being extra cuties the other night. They are growing up so fast and are my handsome little sweeties.

Fun Weekend

2008-10-14T20:29:00.001-07:00

We had a fun time this last weekend. First it was Grant-man's field day at school. He did a great job. I wish I had the video camera for the hula-hoop, he was really good. We went with Ryan's Mom and Dad to the county fair. Our kiddos have never been to a fair before, so we were really excited. It rained all that morning, but by the time we went to the fair it was beautiful, and cool. We had a good time. I think the kids liked all the livestock as much as the rides. We even looked at all the birds. (Huge step for me since I think birds are way CREEPY, but the kids loved it.) It was nice to have a get a way for a couple days and enjoy great weather.