Capri Sun Purses!

I found this super old picture from an Activity Day Girls sewing project I helped with. This was taken BEFORE I was YW President and now I'm subbing in Activity Day Girls, so it's been 18 months! Anyway, I thought it was cute because all the girls except the front 3 are Beehives now. Rachel is on the far left, next to cousin Eliza. Emma is in the back, second from left side. She and Rachel have changed so much in such a short amount of time! We drank so many Capri Suns to make these. I saw some larger ones for sale in Wal-Mart the other day. Weird.

Silly Shots of Spring

Remember the last time Emma had a sleep over? No? Click HERE to be reminded. The next time she had a sleepover, the guys were camping, so I let her and her friend sleep in MY BED. They fell asleep watching a movie at about 10pm (tired after a track meet) and I couldn't resist taking this.

Josh was involved all year in a Samba Group that met once a week to practice. He played at school functions with his Group. He's also taking guitar and piano lessons and plans to join The Band in Middle School. He wants to learn drums and electric guitar in The Band.

Rachel and a friend got together to make a diorama after studying about the Oregon Trail. Luckily her Aunt Allison had some old school cowboys and indians and we found a cougar to place in the mountains to make this scene BYU approved. She did a great job. Rather than keep it, we took a photo to never forget all her hard work.

Katrina had an AWESOME time visiting our family in Idaho. She hung out with the little ones, just like she does at home. She spent lots of time on the trampoline, too! I love this pic of her. She has such funny expressions, I think she'll be great in the Drama Dept. someday!

When I went shopping for clothes for Dan and Madi's wedding, Ben saw this outfit. He just HAD to try it on. He wanted it SO badly, telling me that his friend Kelden wears cool clothes like this and he REALLY needed just ONE cool outfit. He looked so handsome, I couldn't say NO. He's 6 years old and this is the first outfit I've bought him. He's the Hand-Me-Down King. When I wanted a picture, he made his embarrased/pretending to be mad face.

Benny's Soccer

Ben as Goalie. I love this puny little goal.

Damian and the coach (in the red jacket) played against all the boys, while they waited for the opposing team to show up. Mostly the little boys just kicked Damian in the shines to get the ball away from him.

Love this picture, Ben was having so much fun!

I love that Ben runs with his hands all funky and his tongue out.

Hands, tongue again.

Fists curled, tongue out again!

The two cutest fans on the field!

Too cute!

Rock Band!

While in Utah, we went to my brother Michael's for a few hours of ROCK BAND. My kids LOVE this game. And Damian got a chance to try it out. He loved singing with Ben. The two cuties in the front are my niece, Ariana and nephew, Matthew.

Josh likes singing with a few back-up girls. What cuties!

When he's not on vocals, Ben enjoys the drums.

He's got some great "cross-arm" moves. Love that kid.

Lil' Mommy, Katrina

Katrina (Nina) is my 7 1/2 year old little mommy. She's ALWAYS loved playing with baby dolls and as she's gotten older, she had transferred that love to her 5 little girl cousins. (But she still loves playing with baby dolls, too!)

This is Annie Idiart and Katrina. Annie invites Nina over to play all the time.

Katrina's aunts make her feel like they NEED her help, all the time. They compliment and praise her and she KNOWS she's good with little children. I'm so thankful that they make Katrina feel talented and special. If someone needs help (like at this Christmas Program) Katrina steps in, or is volunteered to help some of the littles.

This is a cute one. We went camping with a big group of friends and Nina and Annie were inseparable!

We live next door to our Nadauld cousins. This is Nina and Mary Nadauld at a local splash park.

Nina is so tender with the little girls. It makes me proud. I can't wait for the day she's a mom to her own babies. She's gonna be a good one.

Elise Idiart adores Katrina. . . I don't have photos of Nina with her other two little baby girl cousins, but she loves them, also!

Elise the Pre-Pre-Teen

Every Monday, Benjamin goes to Gymnastics with my nephew Marcus. Marcus leaves his baby sister at our house to be babysat. It is one of the highlights of my week. I do enjoy this little cutie so much.

Katrina followed her around one Monday, snapping pictures. The kid moves so much, it's hard to get a good one. So all the photos were blurry.

I just ran them through Photoshop to blur them a soften them even more and I think they turned out pretty cool.

I love this little gal. She's got SOOO much personality.

She just turned 2 and I'm excited to have 16 more years of her hanging around, making me laugh!

Ben "Whips It!"

When my brother was visiting, we went to the opening night of Drew Barrymore's Directoral Debute: Whip It! I really liked it . . . although I wouldn't recommend it for teen girls . . . too much lying to the parents and making bad decisions, but overall, the message was fun and the action was great. I got all pumped to go to my local roller derby, but then, the theatre was packed with local roller derby girls. When I saw them in the light, I changed my mind.

The main stars of the movie Roller Derby Action were: Smashley Simpson, Babe Ruthless and Maggie Mayhem . . . now I just need a stage name for my own personal Roller Babe!

He's practicing for the big time . . . if he falls, he just bounces right back up!

He can get going pretty fast . . .

He skates in rain or shine, or menacing rain clouds . . .

He always wears his big brother Josh's ball cap, it makes him look cooler . . .

Uh Oh, he's goin' down!!

Give me some ideas for a good name for Ben, the Roller Derby Start (of my heart!)

UNIBOOB?

I found this adorable picture Ben drew for Kindergarten. It's a picture of our family. I love the 3 fingered hands, and the 3 toed feet. Reminds me of our chickens. I also love the twiggy looking hair on the girls and the super large eyes.


As I realized which person was ME, I figured he'd drawn me anatomically correct, but with a uniboob. That made sense, since he doesn't see me without my clothes, it would seem I just have a big padded uniboob. I asked Damian for his opinion on the matter and he said, "No, that's probably your big HEART." When I asked Ben he said, "It's your TUMMY!" Apparently, I'm the only chubby one in the family. Dang it. I preferred the UNIBOOB!

Chicken Update

We started our Chicken Farming Journey with 6 chicks. Re-read about them HERE (and notice their poultry pedicures) After a few months, we bought 4 laying hens to start getting eggs. To see the Hens in their $500 hen-house click HERE.

As our chicks aged, we discovered 5 were roosters. Of all the bad luck, I tell you! Damian killed one with his bare hands by slowly strangling it to death. It was creepy and weird to watch that, and not the most humane way to kill an animal. He plucked it and cooked Rooster Soup. It tasted fine, but none of the kids would eat it. And I couldn't bring myself to eat seconds.

We needed to get rid of the rest; they picked on and ate more than the hens and their crowing drove us bonkers. Whoever said roosters only crow when the sun comes up was wrong! Roosters crow BEFORE the sun comes up and all day/night long.

Damian didn't have the heart (guts) to kill more by strangle method. Apparently, the best way to kill a chicken is to chop off it's head or swing the bird by it's neck, using the weight of it's body to snap the neck. So we argued. I wanted the other 4 roosters gone, but Damian didn't think it was right to kill them if we weren't going to eat them. So one by one, he'd put them in a bag and let them out in the woods on his way to work. He figured if an animal ate them, at least they weren't going to waste. I thought that was cruel, but was thrilled they were gone. Eventually, after leaving 3 in the woods, he killed the last one with the neck snapping method.

Now we were down to 1 grown chick, Katrina's "Shelly" and 3 laying hens, because 1 of our 4 hens died from heat exhaustion or something!!?? After starting with 10 birds, we were down to 4.

Katrina's "Shelly" recently matured enough to lay eggs. Teeny Tiny Eggs. They are so cute. Katrina is holding a jumbo egg from an OLD hen, and "Shelly's" first egg on the right.


We get between 2-4 eggs a day. We have one hen that flies and each day she'd fly out of the coop and lay the light blue/grey egg in a bowl on our back porch. We got tired of all her poo everywhere, so we put a net over the coop yard, rather than clipping her wings. I just like looking at "Shelly's" little tiny eggs. Soon, she'll start laying one everyday and it'll be normal sized.

Webkinz World

I have slight OCD behavioral problems. I get a little obsessive about something for short periods of time. Sometimes it's scrapbooking, sometimes watching movie after movie, sometimes it's craft projects, but right now it's WEBKINZ.

WEBKINZ are stuffed animals that cost between $7 and $16. They come with a special code that allows you to access the same animal in a virtual world. I've been obsessed with going on my kids accounts whenever I have free time (or time I should be doing something else) and earning them tons of "Kinzcash." I use this online money to buy them cool house assessories . . . I made Ben an awesome backyard and schoolroom in his "house." I bought Katrina an indoor movie theatre, complete with concession stand, plus a great backyard. If I tried to analyze why I spend time doing this, I think I'd like to blame this on the fact that I want a great backyard myself, so I'm getting a virtual one on WEBKINZ? I don't know. I'm weird.

As I write this, I realize it's been about a week since I've been on WEBKINZ, because my brother Jon and his sweetie, Amy are in town and I've been busy getting ready for their arrival, so maybe the obsession is over?!

As I was tidying up the house, I went in Katrina and Rachel's closet to gather their laundry and found this little display. They had set up all their WEBKINZ pets (and a few of Josh's) for "school" I think. I thought it was so cute. Altogether, we have 22 WEBKINZ, so 6 aren't pictured here. I don't know where these kids get their OCD behavioral problems.

First Day of Elementary School 2009

I have the cutest, smartest kids around, and they are ALL IN SCHOOL NOW!! Can you believe it? Emma (not pictured) started her second year of middle school. Rachel's in 4th grade, Katrina's in 2nd and Josh's in 5th.

Because of funding issues, our district only goes to school Tues-Fri. The kids will be in school the same amount of days, so I don't really understand how this solves a buget problem, but I'm enjoying the 3 day weekends we have together while they last!

One week after the older kids started school, Ben started Kindergarten. He wasn't very excited and was almost in tears as I left. I worried about him all afternoon.

He came home off the bus very excited about school. He loved it. And he's never had any apprehension about going back. He goes in the afternoons and anxiously awaits his bus all morning!

His sisters were very supportive of Ben's successful beginning of the public school system and very proud of their baby brother.

Katrina helped him with his homework after his first day and has established a routine with him. Every Tuesday, Ben brings home his weekly homework sheet and the two of them sit down and do the whole thing, together. It's very adorable.

"Farm" Life

Damian and Ben built two raised beds a month ago. Oh look, there is our deceased dog, Buddy. He liked to watch over everything. He LOVED to lay in that first bed of dirt.

It was pouring rain while the MEN were working, they were sopping wet, but don't they look so cute?

Now, look over Ben's shoulders and see the beds, full of plants!! OK, except the 1st one. I still haven't planted that one, since it was Buddy's bed. I did fill one, though! The tomatoes will be ready while I'm in Utah for a month. OH, BROTHER!!

We pick this many berries each morning and the kids love how sweet they are. YUMMY!

These were once our cute chicks. Now they are almost full grown and not so cute. They have beady eyes and make a lot of noise, attract skunks and smell horrible themselves. They do eat a lot of bugs around the place, but then they poop everywhere. Just notice how lovely their $500 home is. Now I ask you, was this investment worth it???

Today, Damian brought home 4 new chickens. A client had 60 hens and 2 roosters and the roosters were mating with them so much they were miserable. I wonder if that's where the word "Hen-pecked" comes from. These hens are missing half their back feathers from so much pecking or whatever you call that thing they do.

So . . . the client gave us 4 of his laying hens. One liked her new home with only 9 roommates rather than 61, that she laid an egg in the first hour. Ben was so proud. And he wants it for breakfast in the morning.

I just have one thing to say to you, Ben, "After you clean the coop!!