Family Pictures!

For one of my Christmas gifts Ryan gave me a photography session with award winning photographer, Arnon Livingstone! I was very very excited about this gift and it took a while for the planets to align in such a way that we could make it happen. But last week it did!

The girls wanted to be Charlie's Angels which went well with Tessa's "Farrah Hair", she's requested Farrah-Do's the past several times we've done her hair.

The pictures I'm putting up for your viewing pleasure are actually my second round picks. If you want to see the first round you'll just have to come over and look at our walls :)

Peter had a sore under his nose, not to worry, Arnon has a wonderful photoshop program and we are working on it.
He was a bit of a pill that day. In my defense I tried mightily to get him to take a nap before the event but instead he decided to throw a vicious fit in the car on the way there and fall asleep mid-fit to be awakened sweaty and unsatisfied and be made to smile for the birdie. We will be retaking his individual shots :)

Come on. She is too pretty.
Pickles.

Bug didn't have a bad picture. She is going to be a problem.

He is getting too old and tall and grown up. I had to remind him that he was four pounds ten ounces when I first met him and that he and I were the best of friends. We still are.

This one is actually a third round pick. This was taken while Pete was still in the hitting mode and we were all just trying to stay clear of him.

Come over to see the final cut, but give me a few days, I sort of still haven't ordered them yet. . .

funnies

All this was said this morning as we were getting ready for church.

J: Alana's hair is longer than Tessa's.

T: It's because my neck is longer. Look how long my neck is. . .

T: How old will I be when I get a phone?

M: I was 33 when I got my first phone (*Just a couple of weeks ago :))

A: I want one when I am 33.

T: I want one when I am 12.

A: You will get one before me.

(she is super good at math ;) )

T: Mom, did you have phones when you were a little girl?

M: Yes, but they were attached to the wall, and they had cords and we had to walk to them and stay there to talk and sometimes we would get tangled up in the cords.

T: Did they have that funny shape where they curved around and went from your ear to your mouth?

M: Yep.

T: Weird.

Welcome Home!

Our Squid completed his mission in Washington and returned home! There were about 50 of us waiting at the airport for his plane, balloons, signs, and many many children. Thankfully his flight came to terminal 2 which is the least busy terminal. We did get a lot of funny looks as we waited for him to appear. It was a sweet experience, you can see from the picture that Jeff and Leah both were a bit teary, I was too. Justy is a good boy.

We had lots of fun with him for the 10 days he was home then he drove off to the snow and wonders of BYU, he's started classes and is back in the game. I told him he has to find a wife from AZ so we don't have to share him with another state (I'm talking to you Katie, Kent is nice and all but Iowa? Seriously?!), and she has to be from the Phoenix Metro area because people tromping off to southern AZ every other weekend is lame (I'm talking about you Jess, Mitch is okay, but those St David trips are wearing on my nerves, just tell his fam to move in with you, your palace is big enough.) But really, the Phoenix Metro area is pretty big, whenever Jake and Cory are here they have to split their time between here and Mesa so. . . how about if you just find a nice Glendale girl. Or better yet, an orphan! I'll put an ad on Craigslist.

In other news, my dear parents finished up their mission in Montreal yesterday and have begun the arduous journey home. They made it to Kingston, NY last night and I will be closely tracking their progress. They've promised it will take them all month but it is cold out there in the world and I'm hoping they decide to just power thru and ditch all the people they promised to visit on the way back and come home. I miss my Mom and Dad.

I'm grateful for these wonderful people and their examples of service and selflessness. They rock.

Lately

For Valentines Day dinner I made the kids heart shaped meatloaf, heart shaped biscuits and broccoli. It turned out pretty cute. I was going to make a big cookie cake with whipped cream frosting and strawberries but when they came home from school I realized they'd been eating sugar all day long so they just had strawberries with cream for dessert. They were happy.

They can tell that we love them.

Ryan and I didn't eat with the kids because we were saving room for Outback. We had a romantic to-go dinner with the Clercs when Mitch got done with class. They are fun to hang out with. We are happy that they like to hang out with us old fuddy duddies.

This is what I did last week. I painted. and painted and painted. And the fantastic thing is that you can barely tell the difference. Argh. I'm telling myself it is a subtle difference and that it looks fantastic. I'm going to do an accent wall to make myself feel better and I'll paint the door frames another color soon.

While painting I discovered that I'm really scared to be up high. I don't like it. Which doesn't bode well since we get to paint the exterior of the house soon. . . Anyways, I made Ryan do the second coat of the really high stuff. It is scary up there.

Also, Tessa started soccer a couple of weeks ago. She is enjoying it a lot, she's had one game so far and another on Saturday. Ryan and I are going to have to bite our lips on the sidelines to keep from giving her helpful advice. I'm hoping that she's learned a lot at practice lately and she'll know what to do.

Yep, she's just standing there.

She's pretty good if she knows what she's supposed to be doing so we're hoping she'll do better this weekend.

Sock Wars

It's a sock in a drawer. I found it in there last week and took a picture to demonstrate for you the frustration I feel. Why? Why does a child put a sock in a silverware drawer? Socks are my nemesis. I beg, I sternly chastise, I cajole, I wheedle, I implore, I reason. And yet, every day I find a minimum of 12 socks littered all over the house in interesting places.

I look forward to summertime when everyone wears flip flops (or thongs, depending on how racy you feel) and there is a cessation of the sock wars.

Party Time!

Leah Bug had a bunch of friends over for a birthday party last night. The girls had way too much fun.

We made pizzas. No pictures of that but we cleared off the big kitchen island and stood around it and each girl made her own pizza. They had lots of fun doing that and the pizza turned out yummy.

We decorated "Pup Cakes", little cupcakes that looked like puppies.

We painted fingernails.

Aunt Jessi was essential to the fingernail painting, we could never have handled the kind of bulk painting we did without her and her artistic touch. They turned out cute. Leah's favorite color is green so most of the girls got green nails.


They played at the park quite a bit. I have another official announcement to make; I LOVE having the park right behind us!! Look at this:


Yes, our backyard has a park we don't have to mow. Although, Ryan did tell the kids that they will have to mow it sometimes, ha ha! It is awesome. Really really awesome.

So for those of you who wanted to know why/how we moved, here's the dealio. We needed a bigger house. We looked for about 8 months and it took so long because we wanted to stay in this same neighborhood for the school and the ward/stake. The house we found is perfect in absolutely every way except we are switching to another ward :( Don't make me cry about it again like I did in my talk last week in Sacrament meeting, I think the people in the front row got sogged from my tears. . . But the ward we are moving to is awesome too. They actually won Youth Olympics this year and as I told the YW last week when I taught my last lesson to them; We could have stayed in LPP if only we hadn't gotten 2nd in YO, we have to go where the winners are :), they should have gotten more points, 41 would have done it! Just kidding, ha ha.

So Long Cub Scouts, Hello Sprouts!

Jeffey got his Arrow of Light this week. He was pretty excited.

The arrow plaque is awesome and has been hung up in his new room.



It was a fun night. So we've moved into the new house and it has been lots of work but it has gone pretty well. I've still got more projects than I can shake a stick at, but we love the house, a lot a lot.

I planted some herbs from seeds a couple of days after we moved in and they are sprouting! I'm excited to have cilantro and basil so I can make make salsa and pesto. We discovered that there is a rosemary bush on the front porch so I've been making rosemary bread. I've been baking and cooking more than usual because, and I want this to be an official announcement; *I LOVE my kitchen*. A lot. I mean, I really loved our old house and I liked my kitchen a lot, but this kitchen. Oh my. Happiness.

So far I've got sprouts in all of them but one, but it will come too I'm sure. Anyways, stay tuned for more updates, we've got Leah's birthday coming up next week! And I will be better about posting now.