a RUDE awakening...actually I ALREADY knew this.

A few nights ago, we invited our friend Blake and his two kids to eat with us since his wife was working late, we were sitting there eating and I was holding Blake's little baby and commented on how holding him made me so baby hungry. Chris of course gave me 'the look' and said his typical 'absolutely not' remark.
Taelynn looked at me and said "Mom, you SHOULD have a baby...then you can get bosoms!"
Keep in mind we had company! I'm sure that my face turned bright red. She wouldn't let it die either, she just kept repeating it until I said "Taelynn that is enough!" It is a pretty clear sign that you are in need of some 'enhancing' when your child can state the obvious!

CAUGHT!!!

Whenever Mr. Faisal does something wrong, this is the position that I find him in when I catch him. He thinks that if he can't see me then I must not be able to see him. He says "shhhh, I hiding mommia"

Little stinker boy!

Digital Scrapbooking???

HELP! I am interested in learning more about digi scrapping, but I am completely clueless. Can any of you blogging buddies steer me in the right direction to some good sites where I can go and get some freebies? I have googled it and tried to download some free ones, but I don't get what to do from there. Do I really need to take a class on this? I consider myself a smart person, but man....this is really confusing! Help someone!

Relationship update

It has been a long time since I gave an update on how me and the "Gym" are doing. Well I am sad to say that after five months going strong Gym and I had to part ways. Truth be told, he was just too expensive and far to HIGH MAINTENANCE for me. So the beginning of the year marked the end for the two of us. Sigh. It was good while it lasted. Gym did make me happy at times (like when I would be LEAVING Gym), but the pocket book just couldn't support our relationship anymore. I will always look back on our days together with fondness and whenever I hear the whir of an elliptical or see a bead of sweat drop down my face...I will think of Gym. Here is the crappy part, since Gym and I's parting, six weeks ago, I have probably GAINED oh...about ten pounds and a few lumps of cottage cheese. So clearly Gym had SOME good qualities.
So onto my next relationship, Pilate's at home with my trusty video. Here's to the approaching swimsuit season! BARF.

A good read

One of the blogs that I follow had the best post on it. It was about loving yourself despite all your weaknesses and shortcomings. Seriously it was so funny, you all should read it if you have a few minutes. You can find it here http://momza.blogspot.com/2009/02/wordful-wednesday-love-for-self.html
Thanks Momza for posting such a great post!

And yet another school project...

Yes, that is right...for your viewing pleasure....it is homework time! Taelynn had to construct a home found in the olden days from ancient civilization and we chose to do a Chickee hut. So last night she and I got our creative juices flowing and this was the result...not too shabby huh? Granted I would hate to live in it...way too drafty for my taste.

This was the picture that we had to try and reproduce.

Building the masterpiece.

The finished hut...what a goofy girl, just gotta love her!

"Enough is enough!" says Cinderella as she throws down her broom and turns in her resignation papers!!!

Yep, that is pretty much how it went down here in the land of Fiddlesticks. I thought that when Prince charming swept me off my feet my days of slavery were over! No one told me about the fine print at the bottom of the marriage certificate that I signed all those years ago, that said "some day you will allow some of the seven dwarfs (well four in my case) into my home and raise them as my own...provide them with love, food and shelter and in return they will love you forever BUT they will be complete pigs and when asked to help out around the house they will give you attitude, scream at you and tell you what a horrible mother you are."
Did anyone else read this fine print, or were you just as shocked as I was???
It is true that these little 'dwarfs' can bring so much love and joy into my life, but does the mess have to be part of the package? For real, my dwelling looks so WT right now and I am done with it! So like the title says, I threw down my broom and said ENOUGH!
I am sharing this plan with you because if you are Cinderella in your kingdom maybe it will work for you.
I created a chore chart! Some of you are thinking "well duh, Cinderella, you should have done this years ago!" to which I reply, we have tried to come up with a system in the past, but just can't seem to get it to work.
I made a 'weekly' chart circle that we will rotate each child...I mean dwarf, through. Then I made a chart that listed every daily task that I could think of that the munchkins fight us on doing IE...brush teeth, getting dressed, making bed, taking a shower, reading scriptures. Each day they will get a pink or a black check for each task completed. The color of the check depends on how they completed it, if they complained, argued, or just didn't do it when asked then they get a black check. If they do it like the angels I know they are, then they get a pink. At the end of the week we total the checks...for every pink check they get 2 cents, for every black check they get 2 cents deducted. They have the possibility to make $2.50 a week, which they must then pay their tithing and put 10 percent into savings. Now since they will be making money each week, they will start paying for things like treats at the store, or going to the dollar store etc.
I must say that so far, it seems to be working, granted we have only been doing it since Sunday...so my fingers are crossed!

This is the weekly job circle chart, each week I will rotate their name around the circle.

This is Ana's chart...she has a hard time with doing things without complaining...hence the black checks. sigh.

A happy heart day 2009

HAPPY VALENTINES DAY!!! We had a very nontraditional Valentines day this year. Rather than spending it as a couple we decided to do it as a family. Ana made us this cute Valentine at school

For dinner we did Fondue...which the kids had never done before but absolutely loved! We had steak, chicken and shrimp that they could choose from. I made a few dipping sauces that they could then dip their meat in. It was very tasty.

I bought these DARLING sugar cookies for each of the kiddo's and one GIANT one for Chris. My friend who makes the amazing cupcakes http://cupcakesbyles.blogspot.com made these for me. They were so good!Obviously the kids loved them as well!

For a craft project me and the kids made these cute bags for them to take to school and hold all of their valentines in. They turned out so cute!


You put the valentine in the mouth to drop it into the bag...pretty cute ehhh?!

Hana's Wedding....and a child goes MIA

Yesterday Chris' little sister Hana got married. Here are some of the pictures from that blessed event.

The bride and groom.

All of Chris' siblings...it has been a long time since we have had a picture with all of his brothers and sisters.

Chris' sisters- Miki and Hana and his Mom.

The little stinker!!!! Does anyone have a leash that I can use on this little guy? We were all standing around the Salt Lake Temple grounds waiting for our turn to take pictures on the temple grounds (keep in mind that it was a Saturday at the Salt Lake temple, so it was PACKED with people) and I looked down to see what this little guy was up to and low and behold....HE WAS NO WHERE TO BE FOUND! Panic. Fear. Anxiety.

Chris and I looked at each other and then split up on our search of Temple Square to try and find my little two year old. You don't realize how HUGE temple square is until you find yourself starring at it's vastness and wondering "where on earth can he be?". We searched for a good 10 minutes and could find no sign of him. I kept looking at all the other families taking bridal pictures to see if he had 'jumped' in to any of their pictures (yes, he would do that!)....but nothing. As I made my way back to where the rest of the family was I saw that a big security guard guy was handing Faisal to Chris. I ran to Chris and grabbed my little one and just held him. He was happy as can be, like he had just had a fun adventure. It turns out that he had wandered over to the Joseph Smith Memorial Building and was wandering around in the Lobby!!!! I have no idea how he made it over there and how he opened the door to the building. The guard said that when he asked Faze where his mom was he pointed to the temple and said "temple". Phew! How lucky I feel that nothing horrible happened to him and that no crazy person saw him and scooped him up.

Happy Birthday my sweet hubby!

This week was Chris' birthday! For dinner I made him one of his favorites...Salmon. I also made him his favorite cake, Oatmeal cake...I know, I know, that doesn't sound very good, but let me tell you, it is the BEST!
Since things are tight right now, I had to be creative with my gift giving. I have been searching for one of his favorite games which is currently IMPOSSIBLE to find. 'Bang'. I found a company online in November that was going to sell it in December. But then it was put on back order until the middle of January. So his Christmas present became his birthday present.
He recently learned to make homemade pasta, so I found a Pasta Maker online for a GREAT deal and got that for him also. Have you ever tried homemade pasta?! Next time you are at our house we will have to make it for ya, it is the best! I think that he had a good birthday (hopefully). We love you baby! HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!!!

OH, he also got a bottle of his favorite sauce "Cholula" He eats this on everything (and I mean EVERYTHING)!

Kinda gross, I know. But he is just so stinkin cute!

America's Next Top Models??????

I just love this one!

This was cute! I especially like how Sienna hung a blanket on the door to create a 'backdrop'!

Just gotta love the HUGE HOLE in her mouth!

Taelynn just cracks me up in this one!

Love the seriousness here!

I was looking at the photos in my camera and came upon these photos. Evidently Sienna did make overs on the girls and then took pictures of them. I just cracked up when I saw some of their self posses. Should I give Tyra Banks a call?

one...two...three...SIX!?

Yep....this was the scene at our house. The crazy thing is, these really could be ALL my kids. My bro and sis-in-law went to Cali on business and since they watched our kids while we were in Paris, it was our turn to watch theirs. Really it went very well, with the exception of the Poop incident (see post below). The best was at church...my 13 year old cousin came with us, so there were seven kids on our bench! As I looked down the row I thought, It is possible that all of these children could have been mine (if I had followed in my mothers footsteps and gotten married at 18). It was quite the site to behold. It was fun to have my nephews with us and for them to get to know 'Auntie' better. My kids LOVED it! I think that now they want a little baby at our house...shhhh, don't tell their dad! Can you hear the screaming? Yep, there was A LOT of that at our house (from the kids, not me!)

A great poop story...WARNING: may cause dry heaving!

We have had my brothers two kids staying with us this weekend, Kade is almost 3 and Kyler is almost 1. That brings the total to six small children in my care. YIKES! I had a baptism on Saturday, so I had to abandon the post for an hour and a half. I figured that Chris could handle it while I was gone....sigh.
When I got home I got the story of all stories. Kade had a messy diaper and I guess that Chris didn't get to it fast enough. Well, at some point, for whatever reason, Kade put his hand down the back of his pants and pulled out a handful of...yep, you guessed it. Well it got worse. Then for some reason he WIPED IT ALL OVER HIS FACE! Seriously dry heaving right about now. But it didn't stop there, then he decided that he needed music while he had his 'facial' so he started to play my piano! You can imagine the scene that Chris found when he walked into the living room. There was poop ALL over Kade's face, his clothes and my piano! Let this be a lesson to all of you father's out there that like to put off changing dirty diapers. The image is just too priceless...where's my camera when you need one? I know, I know, that would be WAY to graphic!