Snow Day???

Yesterday we were pleased to wake up to snow! We only got maybe 3/4 inch but there was no school! That's Washington for ya! We only live five minutes away from their schools but they didn't go yesterday. I just want to laugh because of all the snow I am used to from living in Michigan, Utah, Idaho, and Colorado! The kids got bundled up and went outside by 7:30 am. It was a good thing because by 11:00 am all the snow had melted. They enjoyed having a great snowball fight with several of the neighbor kids!

Most of them didn't want to stop for this picture! I ended up taking all my kids plus two cousins to lunch. The rest of the afternoon was spent playing with cousins and friends. Needless to say, I did not accomplish very much yesterday but it was fun for the kiddos. Morgan got up this morning wishing that there was more snow! But I happily sent them off!

Happy Birthday To Me!

My day started with a wake-up phone call from my parents wishing me a Happy Birthday! Thanks for getting me "up & at-m" my parents are very early risers so 6:45 am is sleeping in for them. Jon was downstairs cooking up a yummy breakfast that he served me in bed. I ate alone for about 5 min until all three little girls joined me. With no school today we weren't rushed to get our things done, but I did have to get to the gym for my class by 930 am. I then met Jon for lunch at Panera Bread, YUM!

After lunch I enjoyed a relaxing pedicure and some shopping at my favorite store Target. While I was gone Morgan babysat everyone and cleaned the kitchen, BR, and their rooms. Thanks Morgan! I also enjoyed phone calls from family, friends and presents too!The rest of the day was spent with the family for FHE. We had dinner and yummy mint chocolate chip homemade shakes from Jon. What a fun day, but also kind of scary that I'm closer to 40 than to 30! YIKES!

Happy Birthday Brinley!

Today is Brinley's 5th birthday. It's unbelievable that she is already this age. She came into this world with a big bang and she still is our little firecracker! For about a month now I have been telling her that I'm sad that she's going to be five. I told her that I will cry when you turn five years old! So for the past month she has asked me daily "Mom are you going to cry on my birthday?" I've told her yes every time she's asked. And here I am crying while typing this post! Here are some fun pictures to remember her by:

Brinley had her first friend birthday party yesterday! She was so excited and has insisted on having a Strawberry Shortcake Party for about 6 months! We first watched a SS Movie:The kids then colored a SS coloring page, played pin the strawberry in the basket, and played in the Bonus Room. We then had just enough time for strawberry shortcake, strawberry ice cream, and presents.It was a low-key but fun party for Brinley. She was very excited to have all her friends here! Kennedy, Kennedy, Mia, Rachel, Sydney, Elsie, and Kenyon. We gave SS party bags with bracelet, candy, pencil, and stickers. Even Kenyon liked the bracelet! I got her this outfit for her birthday and let her wear it for the party. I'm not a big fan of the character covered clothing but she's been begging for it for two months. She loves it so much that she wanted to wear again today for her actual birthday! Last night we went as a family to Brinley's choice The Old Spaghetti Factory for dinner. The kids were great and we all had a fun time. Today on her "actual" birthday she waited in bed until her breakfast was done. She wanted to eat her breakfast in bed and open her presents there too! She wanted sausage, eggs, toast, and hash browns, Jon even made an awesome orange julius. But the only thing she ate was her sausage. We played with her toys all morning and then got ready to go shopping with Grandma Jackson. She got a new swimsuit that she saw at Gymboree. We then watched another Strawberry Shortcake movie together while I held her (that was fun to snuggle her on the couch without any interruptions!) What a fun couple of days we've had celebrating her birthday! We love you tons Brinley and love having those big brown eyes say to us daily "I love you!"

Some things Brinley's does at five! She loves her big brother Mason and always wants to sleep with him. She calls Jon "sleepy head" because he often falls asleep when he puts her to bed. Her and Maddie love sharing a room together and often make big messes in there. She is constantly asking me "What are we doing in the morning?" and is always wanting something to do! She loves going to school with Kennedy and Rachel and is enjoying Miss Jessica's ballet class. She's still whinny often and could use a nap daily! She's still very little, wears size three bottoms, and maybe weighs 33 pounds! She loves to play polly's, american girl dolls (she plays with Morgan & Brooklyn's), and anything Brooklyn tells her to do! She loves fruits, salads, any snacky item and is constantly hungry!

New Goals for the New Year!

I was tagged about 10 days ago from my friend Christy. She challenged us to write down 7 things that we learned in the year 2007 and 7 goals that we want to accomplish in the New Year! I have been pondering what my new goals would be so here's my list:

1. Drink more Water!!! Since I've had number 5 I have been driven back to my diet cola habit that I acquired in college. I love Diet Dr. Pepper, Diet Pepsi with Cherry, and of course Diet Coke. I often tell my self that I can have one in the afternoon after I have had 32 oz. of water but sometimes just skip the water and go straight for the caffeine.
2. Try not to stress out so much when my house isn't spotless!
3. Run a half marathon! This is going to be a big stretch! But something to work towards!
4. Read the BOM with my entire family. This is a challenge from our Stake President and we are doing great so far! It is definitely hard when Maddie and Brinley only want to jump on my bed while the rest of us try to concentrate! But we want to involve everyone.
5. Do better about my personal scripture study.
6. Find opportunities to serve more.
7. Strive to be a better wife and mother!

Seven things that I learned about 2007 were:
1. How much I appreciate the little things that happen in my crazy life. For example: My children writing a story about me being their hero, Maddie talking in sentences, Brinley telling me daily how she loves me, and singing to them nightly their favorite song "Sandman".
2. Realizing what a great stage in life we are at right now. Having a built in babysitter, over the baby stage and soon to be done with diapers forever!, and having a pre-teen that still thinks I'm cool! Things are pretty great and I am blessed!
3. Having my husband be our general contractor for our new home saved us ALOT of money but was VERY hard.
4. Moving in the middle of the summer when all five kids were at home with me was SOOOO hard even if the move was across the street. But with the help of great friends we survived.
5. Realizing how incredibly sad I am that my sister moved so far away from me and realizing that we will probably never live next to each other again! It was a great year having her in the Seattle area.
6. Appreciating my healthy but aging body.
7. Learning that I don't ever want to be a single parent. Jon has been traveling a lot these past four months and I am so grateful for everything he does for our family and for me!
3.

P.S. I Love You!

Have any of you seen this movie? I would highly recommend it!!! I have now seen it twice in the theater with two different sets of girlfriends and I bawled my eye's out both times! Don't forget the tissue!

Christmas Vacation!

What a fun these two weeks have been! I am ready for my normal routine again! Between holidays, eating, parties, playdates, more eating, movies, staying up late, playing games, snow, and even more eating I am pooped but it's been great. I'll give a quick run down of our activities. Sunday was spent at church for our Christmas program. I told Morgan to give Maddie anything I packed to keep her happy while I was in the choir and Jon was conducting/speaking. She ended up eating four pieces of gum! That evening we had some friends that were in town over for scones and eggnog, hence the beginning of the holiday gorging! We finished wrapping, cooking, and cleaning on Monday. We headed to Grandmas for Christmas Eve which included dinner and new jammies! When we got home we put out our Santa goodies (we had to use neighbor cookies since we didn't have time to make sugar cookies) I finished up my Santa wrapping while Jon slept and I watched "A Christmas Story." Christmas morning was early and exciting. All the kids were so happy to go downstairs and see all their presents. Maddie would have been happy with just her stocking. (for days after xmas she carried her stocking every where and slowly ate all her goodies inside) We all enjoyed our presents! Brooklyn with her art kit & HS Musical Barbies:

Mason's new bball, Jorden shirt, and playstation NBA 08:

Maddie with all her frog stuff boots, blanket, slippers, purse, etc.:

Brinley's new bike:Morgan and I both got new Ipod's but we have no pictures. Shortly after we opened all the presents we noticed that it was snowing outside! CRAZY! You can kind of see snow in the backgroundIt was a fun Christmas surprise. The rest of the day we played with our new toys, napped, and went the inlaws for dinner. When we got to grandma's house we found out that Jalynn and her family had come to surprise us all for Christmas. We had a fun time visiting and playing with Jake. It was great to see her again. I got up early the day after Christmas to hit the stores. I went to Target twice, Walmart, and Pier 1 all by 8:30 am. I got some great deals for next year's Christmas gifts! That afternoon we took all the kids to see "National Treasure" along with our cousins. We did some kid swapping and had a cousin sleepover. We all woke up at 9:30am the next day and to more snow. I called my friend who lives about 20 minutes up the road to see how much snow she had. She told me they had about 8 inches! We packed up all our gear and headed up to her home. We all had a great time sledding down her hill, having snowball fights, and exploring in her 5 acre yard! We were thrilled we didn't have to drive 2 hours to see the snow! During our second week of vacation we continued to have a great time. We spent New Years Eve with some friends and their kids. We had yummy Chinese food and then ice cream sundaes for dessert. Jon and I also found time to squeeze a movie in that afternoon. New Years Day we took all the decorations down. Yeah! I was able to put it all away and stored in our garage. We then had the Dustins over again for pizza and left over sundaes. Jon headed back to work on Wednesday, but the kids still were home. I was not thrilled with their Christmas vacation this year. (Dec 21-Jan 7) They have played with friends the past couple of days while I have tried to clean my house. I will be ready for them to go back to school on Monday! We have one more fun activity for the vacation today: Mason's Birthday Party. Luckily we are having it at the gym I teach at so all the mess will be there! They will swim, play basket ball, and eat pizza. Sorry this is such a long post but this is also what I use for my Journal!