Easter Sunday!

This is all the kids in their Easter Outfits before church:

And this is them actually leaving for church:Winter coats, umbrella, and rain. I think it barley broke 50 degrees yesterday. Gotta love Easter in the NW! It's usually this way. I'm glad to see that some people got sun. (Monique, so jealous of your 88 degrees!)

Mason's Basketball

Mason had his end of the season bball party tonight. He has been playing on a league with several of his friends from school. He had a great season and improved a lot this year. The coach gave out the trophies, certificate, and a necklace to each of the boys. He compared each of the boys to different NBA players. Mason's name was: Mason "LaBron (King) James" Jackson. The look on Mason's face when coach was talking about him was PRICELESS!!! I would have given anything to have a picture of it! He was so dang excited to walk up and get his trophy. I was such a proud and excited parent right then. Coach didn't even know that Mason's favorite player is LaBron James. Mason's eats, sleeps, and breaths basketball. Jon and I love going to his games. Jon couldn't stop talking to his friend Alex Friday night about how great Mason did in his game earlier that evening. We look forward to many more of his games in the future. Way to go Mas!

What a Day!

Yesterday was a jam packed day in my life! These are the things that I accomplished:
made breakfast, lunch, dinner and cleaned up
vaccuumed my entire house
swept and mopped my floor on hands & knees
ran 3 miles and taught my weight class
watched a total of nine extra kids(4 morning/5 afternoon) including 2 babies! Baby Brody & Jaron
two loads of laundry
changed diapers and wipped bums
helped with homework
went to the school book fair
read books, scriptures and put everyone to bed by myself (Jon was at ward temple night)

I am trying to make up for last week. It took me a whole week to get back into the swing of things from my vacation. Part of this is due to the fact that I was out of commission for 24 hours with the flu. The only good that came from that is that I lost the weight that I gained on my cruise! I finished my jam packed day with 2 plus hours of reality TV: Dancing with the Stars, American Idol, and my favorite Biggest Looser!

Eastern Caribbean Cruise


I finally figured out how to do a slide show so I can now post about our cruise. We went with our friends the Dustins and the Moses'. The islands we went to were Tortola, Grand Turk, St. Thomas, and an island in the Bahamas. It was so fun and relaxing. My favorite day was when we were in Grand Turk and we went surfing and body surfing. There was hardly anyone at this beach that we went to and we just had a blast! Some other fun memories were snorkeling (I especially loved Allie's reaction when she spotted a Stingray), the beautiful water & sand, the swim up bar at Margaritaville, our fun taxi drivers, my favorite dessert the cappuccino bomb, dancing, the magacian, and my massage! What a fun way to celebrate Jon's 40th birthday! Thanks for the fun memories!!!

Cruise

Post Vacation Blues!

Being on vacation was absolutely great but coming back is hard! I feel like I need about three days until I am ready to tackle life again, but that doesn't happen. We were so excited to come home to see our kids on Saturday! They were all awake when we got home so we were able to snuggle and put them to bed. By the time we got to bed we were exhausted. Not only did we have a three hour time difference but we didn't realize until that evening that we were also Springing forward our clocks! Poor Jon who had to get up for early morning church meetings!!! I'm trying to get all the laundry caught up and bills paid today! My friend Karen had my house spotless when I came home! A big thank you to her!!! I will be posting about my cruise soon, I'm trying to figure out how to do a slide show??

Cruise Contest

Eight weeks ago I announced to one of my classes that I was going to be having contest until my cruise. This contest was to help motivate me to loose those holiday pounds I gained and get me ready for my trip. I initailly wanted to do it for all my classes but I decided that I was not quite as weathly as "NBC" and could only afford the $50 Target gift card. Thus, I picked my favorite class at Lacamas Swim/Sport. I gave my students one week to tell me what their goal was and told them that they had to honestly tell me if they completed it within the appropriate time. These goals ranged from fitness, weight loss, and some were just "getting there "4x per week. They also had to attend my class at least one time per week during the eight weeks. Well today was the big day that I gave away the prize. I told everyone that accomplished their goals to put their name & goal on a piece of paper and I would draw one lucky winner! I was thinking that I wanted to make the prize a little better than just a gift card so I decorated a paint can and included some of my favorite things:My favorites include a water bottle for working out, glue stick for scrapbooking, ribbon for bow making, chocolate kisses for eating, and the $50 gift card for shopping at my favorite store Target! There were seven people that made their goal, two girls lost 15 pounds! The lucky winner was Ruth Brown who lost 8 pounds! She told me that she probably would have never lost them without this contest. I love hearing that and I love making a difference in people's lives.

Congrats Pacific!

Morgan had her first dance competition with her middle school the Pacific Vikings. She was gone from 7:00 am until 8:00 pm. Their team performed in the afternoon after we had been there watching other schools for three hours. Brooklyn, Brinley and myself loved watching but Mason, Maddie and Jon got a little restless! Jon took them to the car for about an hour to give Maddie a nap. It was worth the wait because the girls did such an awesome job! It was so fun to watch Morgan and her team. They ended up getting first place for the middle schools and won best spirit award! She had a blast and I am very proud of her accomplishments! Way to go Morgan and Pacific!

Northwest Sun

Last week was incredibly beautiful here in WA! The sun was out all week which is huge for us. The funny thing about living in the NW is that when the sun's out so are people! You Arizonians(is that right?) would be wearing your winter coats but us in the NW just embrace the sunshine. The kids think that since the sun is out that it's summer time and time for the shorts! It was not quite that warm but in the mid to upper 50's. I took the girls and some of their friends to the park with Wendy's Frosty's. They had a ball running, throwing rocks in the pond, rolling down the grassy hill, and playing follow the leader. Here are some pictures of them enjoying the beautiful spring day:

The Big 4-0!

Jon 40th birthday was last Friday! We made him breakfast in bed and then he was off to work just like any other day. His dad took him out to lunch to their favorite restaurant, which I was glad that he took him since I was still running around trying to finish up party stuff! He had a great time at his party with family and several friends. We had all his favorite desserts, cake, and candy. His mom make his favorite German Chocolate Cake:

Everyone enjoyed the "tribute to Jon"that I displayed on the mantel for him. I got some great pictures from Margene. Many people commented on the resemblence between Jon and Mason:

I was very excited to give him his gift, the book that I made titled "The reasons we love Jon". I was thrilled at how it turned out and he loves it. He has thanked me repeatedly since then for all the hard work I put into this memorable gift! I had a few people read their entries and I also mine. These are my 25 things I love about Jon:

-He's always willing to do my honey-do list.

-He's a very hard worker.

-Jon's the best father to our children!

-He has a great sense of humor.

-He's my best friend.

-I can talk to him about anything!

-Jon is very dedicated to his church callings.

-He honors his priesthood.

-He's always willing to help everyone!

-He can fix anything.

-Because he's so cute and I love his brown eyes.

-He's willing to help me with carpooling, baths, and daily chores.

-Jon's the best at helping our children with homework.

-He is very positive and never talks bad about anyone.

-Jon makes me want to be a better person.

-He loves to make me happy.

-He's always concerned about me and our family.

-He loves to entertain and often wants to have a party.

-He love his parents and in-laws.

-He's the driving force behind our family scripture study.

-I love his laugh!

-He loves to play games and is very competitive.

-Because he is so low maintenance.

-He's a great cook and has taught me everything I know about cooking!

The kids each thought of three things they love about dad for a total of 40 things that we love about Jon! Happy Birthday JJ!

Those Stinkin Bows!

I just finished making some bows for a friend at the gym. I have made her several pairs and she buys them off of me. Sometimes I'm not sure if it's worth the money because they take so blasted long to make. Well I have been making a new version of the bow that doesn't take as long and is just as cute or cuter I think depending on the outfit. This is a pair that I made for Madelyn:

All you have to do is tie several different ribbons onto barretts. They are kind of wild and big but I've always loved big bows! This pair of bows that I made to match a gymboree line has got to be one of my favorites but took two hours to make!
This is why I am not going into the bow making business!!! I must now work on Jon's scrapbook that I am far from completeing. It will be a busy week with Valentines Day and his birthday bash the very next day. Everyone is sound asleep and this is my primetime work hours!

Pottery Barn Knock-Offs!

I have been eyeing the pottery barn teen & kids tile system for some time now. I have refused to pay the prices that they are charging for some of their items knowing that I could do it cheaper! So Jon, Morgan and Myself made this tile system for her room:I think it turned out way cute! It is a little smaller then PB and fits her room and desk area nicely! She was also able to pick exactly what colors, and designs she wanted. Jon made, painted, and assembled the system with Morgan one Saturday. I helped her find fun things to put on the boards. We all love it for a fraction of the cost the PB was charging. I also wanted something for Brooklyn's room since she loves to draw and is always wanting to display her art work. I did actually break down and buy the pink magnetic & chalkboard tins at PB and then Jon made the white peg boards.
Now they can both put anything they want on their boards without cluttering their walls or my fridge!

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!

Mason's Birthday!

Mason turned 10 years old yesterday! It seems hard to believe that my sweet little boy is already that old. I was induced with him on December 22 because I didn't want to have him on Christmas Day which was my due date. Christmas that year ten years ago was one of the best having a sweet little spirit so fresh from heaven. Mason has and still is a sweet spirited boy. Jon and I often say that it's good that we only have one because he is such a good boy. He is the best son I could ask for! For his birthday he had breakfast in bed which included his favorite breakfast food, bacon. He then played all day while his sisters and I did all the Saturday chores. (Morgan was not too happy about that!) That evening we ate homemade calazones, drank his favorite pop and watched the BYU Cougs win their bowl game in a nail biting finish! Way to go Cougars!!! We then took the family to ColdStone for their choice is Ice Cream. Mason had a great day and will also get his friend birthday party on January 4th! Mason is very responsible. He always does his homework and is very proud of the fact that he has never missed an assignment. His favorite subject in school is math and he does pretty well in this area. He loves basketball and is currently on a team with some of his bball friends. One day I was looking at my DVR recordings and saw that Mason had recorded a NBA game. When I asked him about this he said that he wanted to watch all the games. I then informed him that there were way too many games to watch and there will always be a game to watch so he doesn't need to record them. Right now he doesn't have a favorite team but he's excited to goto a Blazer game this spring! Santa gave him an early present. He loves to play guitar hero with Morgan, have nerf gun wars with Brooklyn and is constantly taking care of Brinley & Maddie. Both of the little girls just adore him! Brinley constantly asks if its a school night because if it's not she gets to sleep with him. And one of Maddie's first words was "Honey" which is what she calls Mason. Mason still wants me to always be the last one to tuck him in at night and sing him his favorite song "Here comes the Sandman(we call it the baby song)" Mason also loves to play games. He's always trying to play any board game with anyone and he also loves his video games. Mason is a typical 10 year old. Loves to play with his friends, play games, ride bikes, and tease his siblings. We love him dearly and are so glad that we have such a great son!

Busy Weekend!

Why do the weekends seem to just fly by? I think that it's because we only have one day to accomplish so many tasks. Friday evening was spent celebrating Morgan's accomplishments. She got her first report card which included a 4.0! She also tried out for her Middle School Dance Team and made it! She had been practicing all week and then the tryouts were on Friday. We then had to wait around until 7:30 pm to hear the results. She did really great on her routine and is excited for her season.We went to Dairy Queen as a family to get Blizzards. Saturday was devoted to making and delivering our neighbor gifts. All afternoon was spent making yummy carmel corn. I finished the neighbor, VT, and teacher gifts! The kids then delivered most of our gifts in these cute containers!
That evening we took Mason out to dinner and shopping for his birthday. He was very excited for his new nerf gun and bike! Sunday was very busy. With Jon's new calling he seems to rarely be home on Sunday's. We had church, dinner at a friends, choir, our Stake Christmas Devotional, and then cousins over for hot chocolate! We both stayed up late to watch the Survivor Season Finale and we finally crashed at midnight! I'm just glad to get a few more things checked off my to do list.

Fourteen More Days!

There are only 14 more days until Christmas! That's unbelievable. I am feeling not ready at all!!! I seem to be like this every year. I do most of my shopping between Thanksgiving and Christmas, I usually deliver my neighbor gifts the week before the holiday, and I stay up late on Christmas Eve wrapping all my gifts! I think I must have learned this from my mother because that is exactly what she does also. This past weekend I did everything BUT shop for Christmas. I went with friend to look at purses. I ended up buying myself a new purse and Brinley a new outfit.

That evening I went to our ward xmas party by myself because Jon is still out of town. We had a great dinner and program! I then went to a friend's cookie exchange. Saturday was spent teaching, cleaning, babysitting cousins, and scrapbooking with friends until 1:30am. Last night I stayed up late working on my Christmas puzzle. Stephen gave us a Christmas Carol Puzzle a few years ago. This puzzle is a family tradition that we grew up with. Every year we would put this puzzle together before Christmas. Last week Mason reminded me about the puzzle. I was anxious all weekend to get it going. So last night was another late nighter working on the puzzle. I will eventually finish all my Christmas shopping and projects! Happy Holidays!