Safia's 4th birthday!

Today Safia turned 4! I worked my buns off cleaning my house to get ready for our group family Family Home Evening. Our intent was to have dinner at 6pm and have everyone over at 7pm. Unfortunately, the ignitor plate in my oven cracked and I wasn't able to cook my dinner in my oven. I had to run it over to my visiting teacher's house. We ended up starting dinner at 7pm. Just before dinner I caught Safia and Beauchene in my linen closet. They had unloaded 3 full shelves of bath and hand towels, sheets, and blankets. It all got shoved into my bedroom and we went on with our evening. Nate and Candy didn't show up until about 7:15 and then Amanda and Jake didn't get there until about 7:25 as we were cleaning up from dinner. So, we had our FHE, then we sang Happy Birthday, then at our banana nut muffins with chocolate chips (yum!) and then Safia opened her present. It turned out to be a fun evening. After everyone left, Matt and I put the kids to bed and cleaned up another one of Safia's infamous messes. We finished just in time to watch the season premiere of "Medium." That's one of our favorites. (Side note: Matt was able to find a replacement part online to fix my oven.)

Ultrasound results - It's a Girl!!!

To our great delight, we are having a GIRL! Today was my ultrasound. My doctor does his own and his office is kiddie-corner to where Matt works, so I was able to pick him up and we could go together to my appointment. The doctor says everything looks good and normal. My projected due date is June 14th. He was a little concerned about my weight gain of 29 lbs already, but I told him that I just have to eat every 2 hours or my stomach aches with hunger and that I only eat good food.

Pictures have been removed. Sorry!

And she strikes again!

Reporting Safia's weekly disasters:

One night this week while I was making dinner, Safia found my only bottle of fingernail polish and hid in the bathroom with it. She proceeded to paint her own fingers and fingernails, toes and toenails. She also managed to drizzle it in my bathtub and on the bathroom floor. She tried to clean up the floor with toilet paper, but pretty much just smeared it around.

Then we discovered that she had been in the boys' closet again and dumped the clothes off the shelves. A couple of days later I finally took the time to clean it up, just to have her knock them down again yesterday.

Today, I was in a hurry to head to town for my ultrasound. As usual, Safia was being non-compliant. I needed her to eat her breakfast and get dressed so that we could go. Instead, she went outside to get a cat, Niki. She brought her in and set her on my clean laundry. I told her to take that cat back out and get ready! So then she took the cat and hid in the toy closet. She stuck the cat up high on one of my food storage shelves and the cat ended up knocking down a bottle of soy sauce. I ran to the toy closet and saw what had happened. Niki went back outside and Safia was sat down to her breakfast. Fortunately, she then complied and did as she was told. She knew I was mad.

This afternoon after we got home, I was posting my sonograms when Jaren came running to me telling me that Safia was peeing in a tire in the house! Apparently, she wheeled in one of the sand paddle tires for the 4-wheeler and decided that it would make a good toilet. What am I going to do with this child?!!!

Blog slump

I have been in a blog slump for the past 2 months, so I finally spent the day today getting caught up. I posted 15 new posts. Good for me! :-) (If you want to access all of them, you'll have to click on "older posts" at the bottom of the page.

Safia went from Beast to Tyrant

This time Safia hit a nerve with Matt. There was a bucket of ashes out in the garage that we forgot about. Safia found it. She proceeded to stuff all of Matt's tool bags with ashes. It was amazing how far she was able to make one little bucket of ashes go!!

Beauchene's love for animals

My little beau loves our animals. Some pictures are just too cute not to post. I can't help but laugh everytime I see these pictures. In the top left picture I told him to say "cheese", so he did - and tried to help the poor kitty say cheese too!

Kid fun and New Year's Eve

Matt brought home these two boxes from work. Kids had a ball with them and in them for hours and even days. They were up for our new years eve party. Matt's mom and Nate and Candy's family came over and spent new years eve with us. We played games and ate and ate and ate. We had jalapeno poppers, hot wings, chips, veggies, dips, cheese including Bree. We ate ourselves sick. We played a new game that we received for Christmas from one of Matt's co-workers called Sequence. I don't like to play games, but I enjoy this one.

The next morning at 4:35am, the phone rings. Candy has been having contractions every 5 minutes and is only 30 weeks and needs to go to the hospital. So went over there and stayed with her sleeping kids. They returned home about 9:30. They were able to stop the contractions and put her on bed rest. I went back there at 11:30am, picked up her kids, and brought them home to stay for the afternoon while their parents slept. She isn't on strict bed rest. She just needs to take it easy and stay hydrated.

After christmas adventure to the dunes

Something Matt likes to do with the kids is take them to the sand dunes. I am happy to stay behind and let that be a bonding thing for Dad and kids. The kids played in the sand while taking turns riding with Matt on the 4-wheeler. I was able to finish laundry and sweep and mop all the floors. (You can click on the picture to enlarge it. To get back to the blog, push the back button/arrow.)

Christmas evening

Another tradition we have is making a special Christmas dinner. We set out the fine China, nice flatware and goblets. Made a USDA choice prime rib roast (it was on a really good sale), mashed potatoes, steamed veggies, and biscuits. I forgot to buy some Martinelli's, so we just drank water. We all dressed up nice and the girls got to wear make-up. I guess I should have worn some make-up too. Then we had a little dance afterward. Jileigh thought it would be funny to take a picture of Matt and me kissing.

I took my scarf off and Safia decided to wear it as a dress. It was too cute not to add.

Christmas Morning!

One of the traditions we have for Christmas morning is that all the kids have to meet in our bedroom, not before 7am, and wake us up. Then we plug in the Christmas tree lights and get the camera ready as they line up. Beau wasn't about to budge awake, so he sadly missed the line up this year. Then they chug-a-chug-a-choo-choo up the hall and around the corner to the front room where the tree is. They happily enjoyed opening their presents and eating the orange and crackers and cheese in their stockings. The day was spent in PJs hanging out, napping, and watching movies until dinner time. Yes, Beau got a small push broom. He loves cleaning tools and has really enjoyed his broom and sweeping with mom.

Christmas Eve

Christmas eve: In the morning we cleaned up everything so we could have a clean house. In the afternoon, the kids spent hours putting together a gingerbread house kit that Matt received from a co-worker as a gift for the family. They were instructed that they could put it together if they promised not to eat any of it. In the evening Grandma Cynthia came by with her present for the kids. They all got PJs. I took several pictures of them and this one was the least blurry. We got her a digital instant-read thermometer for kitchen use.

We had set the gingerbread house back in our bedroom to dry. Jaren decided on his own that it was time to bring it back into the kitchen. Unfortunately, he tripped and dropped it. That didn't last very long. The dumpster was very happy to eat it for us.

Dec 23rd - Safia and Jaren's mess making

So on the 23rd of Dec the family was sitting around watching a movie and enjoying the warm fire. Safia and Jaren were being a little

noisy and finally left. When the movie was over, one of the older kids yelled out for me to come into the toy closet to see what the little kids have been up to. They apparently went outside first and dumped the ashes bucket into my mop bucket making a big mess in the garage. Then they went into the toy closet and dumped 2 shelves worth of toys onto the floor and busted open a package of pasta and spilled it on the floor. This was one of those times where I just had to walk away and go into my bedroom and shut the door. Decided to deal with it another time.

My little fashion models

Jileigh and Angelique like to sneak my camera, dress up like fashion models, and take pictures of each other. I am only a little bit worried!

Snow day!

December 18th the kids had their very first Snow Day and didn't have to go to school. They played out in the snow all day long. First at our house, then at Nate and Candy's house.

My silly kids!

These silly little kids love to sit in MY rocking chair to watch TV whenever Matt and/or I are not in it. This was taken on Nov 15. All of them were trying to sit in it at once.

Talon and Angelique sing at Lin's grocery store

Talon and Angelique's school choir had the opportunity to sing at Lin's grocery store for their holiday open house. As much Angelique LOVES to sing, she gets shy singing in public, being quiet and reserved. I hope some day she will come out of her shell in her public performance ability. She is quite the singer and performer at home. Talon loves to sing too and doesn't really care about where he is singing.

Thanksgiving weekend

We spent Thanksgiving day at Matt's mom's house. I forgot my camera again dang it! It was just us and Grandma Cynthia for a while. Later Amanda's family came and Aaron and Elisa showed up. We had turkey with all the fixins. Everything was really good. We enjoyed visiting and playing scattergories. Talon, Angelique, Jaren, and Safia stayed the night because Cynthia was planning on planning on coming to town the next day anyway. Jileigh originally was planning on staying the night, but felt like she should go home. Good thing. She ended up throwing up 3 times during the night. Poor kid.

The next morning, Matt got up at 4:30 and left to go shopping at Walmart. He was able to find everything that he went there for. He didn't make it there until after the 5am opening time and said that it was a mad house. Fortunately, by the time he was ready to check out, most of the crowd had left.

My niece's wedding

The weekend before Thanksgiving was my Niece Kelci's wedding in Mesa AZ. My sister Jennifer from Orem picked us up (us meaning Safia, Beauchene, and me) on Thursday and we rode down with her to Mesa. We stayed at my parents house. (When I got there, I realized that I forgot my camera. I was totally bummed about it.) The wedding was on Friday. That morning Cassie, another niece, cut my hair for me. It was too long and annoying. The ceremony in the Mesa Temple was nice. The luncheon was at the Landmark restaurant and was very good. The reception was held at a country club was done up very nice. The food was really good too.



On Sunday, I met up with a former college roommate Hydee. We had a fun visit walking around the temple grounds. (She forwarded a picture to me.)


We drove back home on Monday. We arrived home at 7pm and Matt had just pulled dinner out of the oven. Chicken Pot Pie! After dinner he drew my bath to soak in and listened to me talk. What a good husband!

Jaren lost his first tooth! And then his Second!

Today, November 12, Jaren lost his first tooth. After dinner, he wanted to try to get his very wiggly tooth out. Angelique decided that she would be the "Dentist" and pull his tooth out. After several tries, she got it out. He was such a proud little boy. (He is not wearing a shirt because he was afraid that he would get blood on it.)

On the 25th of November he lost his second tooth! He wiggled this tooth for days and really wanted it out. I was so sick of listening to him that I took a square of toilet paper, asked him if I could see his tooth, put my fingers on it and pulled it out and said, "There you go!"