Easter 2011

Today was a great day. The kids started out the morning with searching for their Easter baskets that the Easter bunny brought them. Then we headed out to church and got our spiritual cups filled. I had wonderful lessons today that really touched me and helped me feel the spirit so strongly. I am so grateful for my Savior and for what he did for me and each of us.

After church we came home and we took a few pictures of the kids in their Easter clothes.




The kids were REALLY uncooperative and it was such a struggle to get any shots at all... little turkey's!


She looks so grown up in this picture. I bought this dress for her and can now say that I officially can buy her clothes at the same stores that I shop at, not kids' stores. (different sizes though....WAY different sizes)

These two can be such little goof balls. They just crack me up!


I don't know why but she LOVES making this face. HILARIOUS kid!

Chris and I did a special gift for the kids for Easter this year and to give it to them I made a picture scavenger hunt. I took close up pictures of different things around the house that they had to guess what and where it was, find the item and retrieve the clue. The clues were strips of paper with one word written on it. The words put together made up a sentence that gave them a hint as to what our surprise was.

Here are the pictures:
A bowl in our china hutch
The baby grand piano
Our book shelf
The water dispenser to our spare fridge
The rock wall on our playset
The mailbox
A decorative suitcase
The inside of the girls medicine cabinet
The bar-b-queThe front door
The garbage can
The shed...This is where the surprise was hiding. It was so funny to watch the kids race around the house and yard trying to find the next clue.
Ana holding up the basket.

The word strips said "Our family's surprise is happening this fall! Can you guess what it is?"

Opening up the basket....so excited to see what it was!

Hmmmmm..... I wonder what all these items have in common?!
They figured it out! They were all Disney related items. We are going to Disneyland this fall!!!

As you can see from the pictures they are VERY excited. The last time we went as a family Faze was only one. The girls have gone with my parents a few times but Faze hasn't so he is super excited to see Donald Duck!
For dinner we headed to my parents house.... before dinner we did an Easter Egg hunt with all the cousins. This year was the first year that two of my kids HID the eggs, not FIND them...it was a bitter sweet moment for me to realize that my sweet babies are growing up.
They did a great job hiding them!
Faze did a great job FINDING them.


We even had the Easter Bunny show up and surprised us all.... the littler ones FREAKED out, they were so scared. It was hilarious!



After the great hunting it was time to come in for a tasty dinner.
My mom went all out to make the table settings cute.
My sweet nephew Ty-Ty.... just love this little guy!
Oh how I love this man. This is my grandpa, one of my hero's.

After dinner we sat around talking and the kids told everyone about their trip to Disneyland. Of course my parents wanted to come, which I figured they would want to (they have annual passes, lucky ducks!) and my brother and his wife decided that they wanted to come with us instead of in November like they had planned. So we decided that we are going in September, it happens to fall over my birthday, which I'm elated about!!! I can't think of a better place to spend my birthday then in Disneyland! I'm so excited!

So here I sit in bed, typing all of this, exhausted, but so content and happy.

Happy Easter everyone!

1 year anniversary

It was one year ago today that we took a leap of faith and moved into our new home and neighborhood. It was one of the hardest and scariest things that we have done, but we knew that it was the best thing for our family.

Now a year later I know for a fact that this was the best thing we could have done! My children have flourished in their new surroundings, especially Sienna. The young women in this neighborhood are AMAZING and such good examples for Sienna. She has made some amazing friendships and for that I am beyond grateful.

Chris and I have made some fantastic friends also. There are dear people here (and in our old neighborhood) that are like family to us and have welcomed us with open arms and we just love them.

I'm grateful for a Heavenly Father who is mindful of my little family and knows just what we are need of. I feel very blessed.

Winner, winner, chicken dinner!!!

Well actually it was a bbq dinner!

The other day we were out and about with my dad and we were trying to pick a place to go for lunch. I recommended one of our new favorite places, Dickey's BBQ in AF. Have you been there? If not, then I highly recommend it. So yum-a-roo! So I suggested that we go there. On the way there we were listening to the radio and the station we were listening to announced that they were at Dickey's grand opening and to come on down to get some discounted food and enter to win some drawings. Sweet! I was so excited to get some discounted food. When we got there the place was PACKED! My dad had no desire to wait so we decided to go elsewhere. As we were about to leave they announced that the drawing for a years worth of Dickey's food and tickets to a concert were about to be drawn. I hurried over and entered mine, Chris' and my dad's name. I then folded my paper in my 'special' way and dropped it into the box. You had to be present to win so I convinced my family to wait until after the drawing to leave.

A few minutes later they did the drawing for the year's worth of food. They called some ladies name and nothing. She was not still there so they drew another name..... and drum roll........

They called MINE! I started freaking out and ran up to collect my prize. I NEVER win anything, so I was so excited!

I have one free card a week for a year. Guess I know where we will be going for date nights for the next year!!! LOL

Our new cabin

Oh how I wish this was ours! This past weekend we went and stayed in this beautiful cabin with all my family. It is my brother's in-laws cabin, not ours :0(

For Christmas my brother gave all of my family members a weekend at this cabin. We spent four days up there and it was WONDERFUL. We had such a great time visiting, playing games, riding snowmobiles and watching movies. Thanks Nic and Krista for such a wonderful time!
This picture was taken this summer, when we were there the snow was as tall as the first deck!
Part of the front of the cabin... I couldn't fit the whole thing in my camera's lens. It was huge!
This was the great room and dining room.
Another shot of the great room.
This was the downstairs family room/game room
The theater was INCREDIBLE! I literally felt like I was at the Indiana Jones ride at Disneyland. It was called "Big Thunder Mountain railroad Theater" Inside it looked like you were inside a red rock mountain. The picture above was of the stage in front of the screen and a cool mural on the wall.
The chairs were those 'rumble' seats that shook when the movie scene did, and all the seats reclined.
They even had a train set that ran around the top of the ceiling.
Freaking coolest theater I have EVER scene!
The entrance to the theater was right next to the 'ice cream parlor'
This was the downstairs kitchen that they called the ice cream parlor. All the little jars along the back were filled with different types of candy to be mixed into ice cream. They even had those cold granite slabs like they do at Cold stone that they mixed our ice cream on.
One of my favorite things about the cabin was how kid friendly it was! There were three different playing areas for kids. Here was the first one.
This was so DARLING! It was in the basement next to the ice cream parlor. I just love all the details that were added.
Look at this mural! I love how they made it look like the names of the kids had been engraved into the wall.
This was inside the General Store, the back wall was a painted mural that opened up into a secret hiding place. The kids loved playing store!

This was the second play area in the 'Princess room'. The front of the room had four beds and the back of the room they turned into a little cottage. These two pictures were in the cottage.
This faux fireplace was so darling!

The front of the cottage.... everything but the shutters were painted on. So cute!
Another mural, across from the beds.
A shot of the room from the doorway. This is where my girls slept.
The third play area was the 'tree house' room. It had a awesome bathroom in it, the picture above is the tile floor in the bathroom, it had frogs, lizards and leaves in it.

Another mural against one of the walls
Can you believe how awesome this is?! The tree trunks felt so realistic. Behind the trees were three sets of bunkbeds.
Ana playing on the log bridge that took you from one play area to the other.

The entrance to the tree house.
At the other end of the room they had another little deck area for them to climb up in and play.

The cabin sat on 160 acres of private land for us to snowmobile on. The snow was so deep and each night we got a new foot of snow. It really was incredible and so so fun!

Skiing with Lisa

While Chris was gone on business to Switzerland (ya, I know, lucky duck!) I took advantage of some ski passes that I had to Sundance. I took Taelynn one week and my amazing friend Lisa the other week. Lisa had never skied at Sundance so she was excited to go with me. We had SUCH a good time, it was an amazing day....so warm!
Check out that view! Perfect blue sky's!
Us at the top of the mountain. They have a lodge up there that we ate lunch at.

Hilarious! On the first run down, Lisa decided to take the harder route and I took the easier way. I looked over at her just as she took a huge spill! It was so funny! Then she couldn't get up... it took her several tries to finally get back on her feet. She was so shocked that she fell, she said that it has been years since she has fallen. What a hoot!
I think that she looks like a movie star in this pic. I seriously think that skiing is such an ugly sport... I feel so BLAH and frumpy. Why does everyone else always look so cute and stylish while they ski and I look like a stinkin Oompa-Loompa?!

Skiing with Tae

Tae and I were able to have a mommy/daughter date up at Sundance, for what turned out to be the last ski day of the season for us. We had such a good time! Tae has become such a good little skier and she just LOVES it. I loved being able to spend the day with my Tae Tae.

It was such perfect weather! Almost too perfect, the snow wasn't the best and I had to try really hard to keep going in-between hills. It was perfect for Tae though. She is doing so well at her S-curves. We can't wait for next year's ski season....I'm hoping that we can get Ana up on the mountain next year.