Great news!

I figured it's OK to write about this since Brandon already has it on his My Space. Kelly's pregnant! My baby sister is going to have a baby! Yeah! We have all been waiting for this for a long time. She said she's already "Fat and Bloated" which, somehow, I really doubt. If you check out Brandon's page it says "I made a baby!" How did you do that all by yourself...that's amazing Brandon! Ha Ha! :) Anyway, congrats and GOOD LUCK guys! I have a feeling I will be over there ALOT to help!

I remember when I had Taylor. Nobody told me everything you go through AFTER you have a baby. I thought once you have the baby, it's all bliss. I was very surprised...somebody could have given me the heads up on that. After Taylor, I didn't want anymore babies, and she was an amazing baby. Sleeping through the night at 3 weeks old. 5 kids later...

YESTERDAY was a really great day! I haven't had one of those for a while. Everything seemed to go my way yesterday...

My washer (that hasn't worked right for a month) worked perfectly yesterday. I did about 12 loads of laundry and got all caught up yesterday.

On Sunday, Lincoln cleaned the whole upstairs (it was really messy). He is a really good cleaner, too. He always puts everything in it's place. He cleaned everybody's room, including mine. That saved me a lot of time on Monday to do other things. Thanks Dude! I made him Yum Yums for that.

Nobody argued yesterday, which is huge. Nobody complained about what I made for dinner! Everybody paid attention during FHE and scriptures. This is kinda funny...our opening song for FHE was ABC's and our closing song was "Christmas Time Is Here" from the Chipmunks.

Jim was home most of the day, too, which meant I was free to go get my Pepsi as I pleased!

So, even if nobody cares about reading this, I had to post it because I LOVED my day yesterday! :)

This Week in a Nutshell

This week was kinda crazy! I feel like I am running a marathon constantly. It seems like I am always rushing somewhere or in a hurry to get something done. I don't mind too much, though, because I know that soon enough my kids will be grown up, and then I will long to have that chaos back. These are a few things we did this week.

There is no TV on Sunday, so the kids always have to get creative. They do a "play" almost every week, and it is almost always about Star Wars. My kids are obsessed with Lego Star Wars on XBOX. They think the XBOX game came first and the movies came later. It makes me feel really old. Anyway, Taylor is a Storm Trooper, Blake is Obiwan, and Lincoln is Darth Vader, of course (couldn't you tell?).
The girls made a cake all by themselves! It was really good, too! Thanks girls!

OK, let me explain. Thursday morning, the kids went to seminary with Jim because it was "Take your child to work day". That night Lincoln fell asleep at 5pm without finishing his homework, reading his book, or having a bath. So, Friday morning he was up early...we got the homework and the book done, but didn't quite have time to give him a bath! He was filthy from playing outside, of course. So, I put him in the kitchen sink real quick, washed him off, and sent him on his bike! That's ghetto, huh? Anyway, Brookie thought that looked like fun, so there she is!

We have had this tile for a year and half. This week, Jim surprised me and started tiling the kids' bathroom! Unfortunately, it's really hard to lay, so we are going to have to hire somebody to finish. I got motivated and painted the walls pale pink. On top of that, we cleaned out our garage! That was a 2 day project! Thanks to dad and Carol for helping. It looks great! Now maybe Jim can build something for me with all those tools...hope you're reading this, honey!

So, what good is work if you can't play?! This was our Friday night Enrichment "Girl's Night Out". We had a blast playing Rock Band! Dana can rock that guitar, right? Lisa was great on the drums. She has amazing rhythm! Inside joke...she just could not get the beat on this one song. We all fell down laughing! It was hilarious...love you Lisa!

BMX Race Night

I have to say, the highlight of my week is when I get to go to the track and watch my little man race! He races in the 5 yr. old intermediate class which means he's usually racing 6 & 7 year olds. Every race is different, you never know what's going to happen. When Lincoln races, he puts everything he has into it. This past week, he was in 3rd place and he came to the corner and passed this kid low on the inside. He ended up taking 2nd in that race! It's fun to see all of his sisters and cousins screaming and cheering him on, too! Pedal Lincoln Pedal!
This is what the girls do while Lincoln's racing. I cringed this week when Brooklyn wanted to come, because she had just had a bath. I couldn't stand to see her cry, so I caved and let her come anyway...
Her face is covered in dirt!

This is hilarious! During the race, you can buy raffle tickets and win prizes. So they start announcing the winning tickets, and we hear this little girl calling out the numbers. My neice Hailey is in the middle of the track calling out the winners! I don't know how she got there, but I told my sister she needs to keep better track of her kids! Ha Ha!

Shot Through The Heart...

and you're to blame, darling you give love a bad name! I LOVE a good rock concert, and nothing tops Bon Jovi! We had a girls night out Saturday! I think our husbands wanted to be spared the humiliation of watching their wives scream and dance like teen-aged girls. Just about once a year Bon Jovi comes to town. It's usually just Carol and I, but this time Mom and Kelly and Carol's friend Susan came with us. It was so much fun! Kelly didn't even have a ticket until like 5 minutes before the show started. She was supposed to be at a wedding that night, but that fell through, so we just got in line at the Box Office, and there was this drunk guy in front of us. He said that he was a "VIP" and he would make sure she got a ticket. She would've gotten in anyway, but it was nice of him to help. We snuck her into our section, and I shared my seat with her. We stood the whole time anyway. Daughtry opened for them ( I am a HUGE Daughtry fan!), and Bon Jovi played for over 2 hours! It was amazing!!!!

Kelly has the longest tongue ever! I had to post it! Sorry Moe!

There is something awkward about your mom screaming when Jon Bon Jovi takes his shirt off! Love you Mom!

Halfway through the concert, Chris Daughtry came out and sang Blaze of Glory with Jon! It was amazing!

Have a nice day!

Yesterday is a blur

I was so sick yesterday. We got home from church, and Jim made me go to bed. I took some Benadryl and slept from about noon until 9:30 this morning. Dylan is always wearing everyone else's shoes. Jim snapped this yesterday. She just could not get that toe in there!

My husband is an amazing man. Saturday was his birthday. I wanted to post something for him on his birthday, but we had a crazy day. So, I'm going to do a little primary spotlight on him...

Favorite things...

• His family
• Golfing
• Fast Cars
• Sunflower Seeds
• Chinese food
• Teaching seminary
• Building things in his shop
• The color orange
• Watching soccer, golf, baseball. "Lets go Mets"

Honey, you are wonderful! Thank you for letting me go to Bon Jovi on your birthday. I will feel guilty about that for the rest of my life!

Is track break over yet?

OK, I have to be positive because my girls read this blog all the time. I love that we live in a cul-de-sac and the kids get to play outside all the time, but how hard is it to KEEP THEIR SHOES ON? I promise that I never let them outside barefoot, but somehow they always end up that way. By the way, I made them all crawl into the house for this picture and then crawl straight out back to the swimming pool to wash their feet off. Those little feet never touched my floor.

I feel really bad for the kids...this has been a crappy track break. We were gonna hang out by the pool, and go on bike rides all of track break, but since it has been cold and windy, practically the whole time, we kinda had to change our plans a bit. We even tried to heat the pool, but it turns out our pool heater is broken. The point is...I am exhausted from trying to entertain my kids! It has been non-stop: sleep-overs, late-overs, friends and cousins over, running my kids to friends or cousins houses, back and forth to Grandma's house, "Mom, can you play guitar hero with me", "Mom, did you make the cookies yet?", "Mom, I am SOOOOOOOOOO bored!" "Mom, can we have crepes for breakfast?" "Mom, Taylor and Blake won't let me in their club!" I'm laughing as I'm writing this because I am not even exaggerating! OH! And I wish I was the person who invented Webkinz...we have 4 computers at our house, and today I couldn't even check my e-mail because they were all occupied with Webkinz. Oh well, right?

I do have good news, though. Dylan peed (sp?) on the toilet twice today! She is so smart! She is only 20 months old. The only reason that it has been so easy is that she is NAKED all the time! I literally have to run her to the toilet every so often or she will pee on my floor (or my counter, if she's up there). I will have her potty-trained by the time she's 2 for sure! Yeah! I have been buying diapers non-stop for almost 10 years! Now, if I could just get rid of the pull-ups...

"Mom, can I do some jobs?"

My conversation with Blake and Lincoln today...

"Mom, can I do some jobs?" (Lincoln)

"Why do you want to do some jobs?"

"I really want a baby brother. I need to earn some money."

"Mom, how much are baby brothers? Like a thousand?" (Blake)

"No, I think they're more than that."

"OK. What jobs can we do?" (Blake)

I replayed this conversation to Jim, and he just said that children are really close to the veil and I should probably consider what they're saying (he was being funny). He would love another baby, but he is very supportive. He knows how I feel about this. I am very content with how things are right now. Dylan is like 2 months away from being potty trained. Lincoln is going into 1st grade next year, and then I will only have 2 kids at home! I think they are all secretly trying to kill me! Chances are we would have another girl anyway! And if we had another girl we would have to turn our loft into a bedroom and install another bathroom for sure. So, say I have another baby...when my family gets baby hungry again do I have to go for number 7? I do 10 loads of laundry a week! I hope this is a phase for the kids, because they are going to be very disappointed otherwise. My mind is made up.

Future X Gamers

Despite having 4 sisters, Lincoln is all BOY! Westley is Lincoln's cousin. They are best friends and pretty much inseparable. Westley is 9 and Lincoln is 5, but you would never know there is a 4 year gap between them. They are interested in all of the same things, and Lincoln will try anything that Westley will. Lincoln came in the house last week and said, "Mom, I just had the sweetest wreck! I flipped over my skooter and skidded on my head!" He has absolutely no fear and it scares me to death!

They will jump a ramp with ANYTHING!

Blogging about Blake

This picture was taken last week. I could not find Blake anywhere, and my niece Hailey told me that Blake fell asleep under her bed. I just had to snap a picture. She was out for a good 3 hours. There's a little story behind this...a couple of weeks ago our family suffered a tragic loss. My 10 week old baby niece Jacey passed away of complications from SIDS. She was just a perfect little angel and it was the Father's will to call her home. Needless to say, things have been slightly chaotic ever since. We've had anywhere from 8 to 11 kids (cousins or cousints as Lincoln would say) spending the days and nights with us. For about a week-and-a-half Blake graciously gave up her bed for her cousins, and willingly slept on the floor. I think she was trying to escape all the chaos and noise that day, so she decided to tuck away under her bed! I love that little girl!

OK, so this is kind of random, but this is an entry from one of Blake's journals at school...word for word.

2-13-08

I think a hero isn't some one like Spider man, Batman, Superman, or any one like that. To me a hero is like George Washington, Abrham Lincoln, Presedent Hinkly and James Madison. I think heros are cool becase without them Id think it would be no fun. Example: My dad is my hero. And thats what I think about heros.

I love those little glimpses of testimonies that come from children! Thank you primary teachers!