Dancing Queen

This past weekend I went to a couple of school musicals to see a couple of my girls perform. One of the shows that I saw was "Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat" at Hunter High School. It was wonderful, very well done, and a lot of fun to watch. However, I think Aubrey had a better time at the play than I did. During one of the songs, the actors came into the audience to take a few people on stage to dance. Aubrey was one of the chosen few. She went up on stage and a sweet Egyptian girl (at least according to her costume) sort of adopted her and they did the twist together. It made Aubrey's night. I wish that I had had a camera there to catch the excitement. It was a pretty fun night. Aubrey and I had a great time together.

Also, lately Gavin has taken to changing his clothes seven times (or more) a day. Any time he gets a drip of water or an almost invisible speck of food on his clothes, he feels compelled to change them...immediately. This makes for a lot of laundry. My parents are probably laughing up a storm at that. I have heard the stories of how I was exactly the same way when I was little. Stupid heredity!!!

P.S. Saw Twilight this weekend...I loved it. YEEEEEAAAAAH VAMPIRES!!!

A Moment of Gratitude

Thanksgiving is a great time to be grateful (of course, when isn't a good time to be grateful). This past weekend I had the chance to spend three hours on Saturday playing volleyball with our ward co-ed volleyball team. It has been years since I have played, but I love volleyball so I was thrilled. It was nice to find that I wasn't as rusty as I had thought I would be (I'm no Misty May-Treanor, but I do alright). It was fun to be in front of a speeding volleyball and be able to get it where it needed to go. It was a little bit embarrassing to serve underhand the whole time, but at least those serves went over the net. Our team ended up taking second place in the tournament and we all had a lot of fun. The next day, despite ugly bruises on my knees and forearms and some severely sore thighs, I made it around and even managed to have a good day. It reminded me how much I love this sport and how grateful I am for great games, wonderful people to play with, and a loving Heavenly Father who remembers who we are, even if a part of that identity is buried somewhere deep below the surface.


We have been trying to help the kids learn about Thanksgiving and the reason that we celebrate this time. It is a little bit hard (when there is already Christmas music and Christmas toy catalogs) to get them to focus on anything but the Santa holiday. However, we are doing our best. For family home evening we watched a show about William Bradford and Squanto and the first Thanksgiving. The kids were a little more interested in pretending to be Indians than really paying attention, but we gave it a go. Josh and I feel very blessed that these precious souls have been entrusted to us and we hope to do the best that we can to bless them and help them grow into the amazing people we see within them. I guess our Heavenly Father probably feels the same about all of us.


Bryce tells us he is most thankful for legos, his school teacher, and bionicles. Aubrey says she is thankful for clothes, food, and her family. Parker is thankful for the color red, pre-school, and ice-cream. Gavin is thankful for his primary teacher, Dino Rangers (like Power Rangers) and Ben Ten Alien Force. Logan is a little small to tell us what he is thankful for, but we know he loves his binki and blanket and anything small enough to put in his mouth. As a family, we have been very blessed. We have a beautiful home, wonderful friends and family, a job our dad loves, working vehicles and even an overly obnoxious dog. Most of all, we feel blessed to be able to be together as a family and to have a Heavenly Father who loves us and cares for us. We love you all.


Happy Thanksgiving!!

Kids, Toilets, and Noses

It's funny how being a parent puts you in touch with things that you never really thought much about before you had children. For example, since becoming parents, Josh and I have learned how to remove and replace toilets (with three removals and two replacements, we are old pros) , how to counteract a variety of clothing stains, how to appreciate "Magic TreeHouse" and "Magic Schoolbus" books, how to clean up puke without puking yourself (that one's easy, you ask your sweet husband to handle it), and so forth.

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Another thing we have come to know is how to get things out of children's noses. While we have removed things from the nose of almost all of our children (thank you Bryce for not stuffing things up there and hopefully Logan will choose not to do that as well), most of our nose object removal knowledge has come courtesy of our now three year old, Gavin. This week Gavin came in to our bedroom complaining that his nose hurt. When we asked why it hurt, he looked at us with this "Duh, because I shoved a little green plastic ball up it" expression. Fortunately, we are not amateurs in this arena (although we have had to take Gavin to the doctor to remove other objects). Josh expertly maneuvered the offending ball and the universe was returned to normal. You can always count on Josh when nostril probing is required.

We have also learned to appreciate home movies made by our little ones. Aubrey has been the creator of late and below you will find her latest cinematic creation. You will note the Christmas music in the background, the kids cannot get enough of it. Poor left out Thanksgiving. Enjoy her little show.

Kids definitely keep life interesting. As a side note, we just found out this week that Bryce's reflection contest entry (a picture of Moka...it's in a previous post) is going to be moving on to the district level of competition. We're not sure if that means he was first place in his school or top two or three, but either way we are really proud of him. He worked hard on that project.

Life here is never dull, that is for sure!!! (but that's the way we like it)

OFF TRACK LAMENT!!!

Well the kids are off track. Is that enough information to relay the chaos that currently reigns supreme in our home? With all five children at home all day, the awful din that reverberates through our entire neighborhood is sure to send tremors throughout a one block radius. However, on the other hand, the sounds are mostly happy ones so it is all worth it. I do get a little bit worn down by the constant state of vague mess that seems to hover throughout the house now, I just don't seem to be able to stay on top of it all...by the time one is cleaned I have been preoccupied long enough to leave time for another one to magically appear.

It's times like these that I am really grateful for my sweet husband. He is sure to laugh when I am being ridiculous, or step in when I am about to lose it, or just wrestle with the kids when they need a break from me. We wouldn't stay sane without Josh. He is currently a high school psychology teacher. It is his first year at Murray High School, however, he is already one of the more popular teachers. In fact, they had to add another psychology 1 class 2nd semester because the two that were scheduled filled up completely. His sports psych class, which had 16 students this semester, is also much more full next semester. The kids really enjoy him and we couldn't be more proud of our dad. He keeps us all happy. We love him!!!

I am also grateful for fabulous books that let me escape for a few moments into someone elses world. I am currently re-reading the Twilight books. Boy, I love those, they are so much fun. To think I ignored them because I don't usually care for vampire books.

Off track or on, it is such a blessing to be able to spend all day every day with my little ones, my favorite people in the world. I can't lie, I am grateful for nap time and I might not be sane without it (wait, am I sane now...ok, that's debatable). I am sure grateful for your family, even with the destruction and yelling and fighting and mess at home with all five kids, I wouldn't trade it for the world. What could be better than family.