How many seconds to get home?!

I just love the phases our children go through! :) Currently Rodney is in the counting state, our older kids have all done this and this phase lasts quite a long time! But it's great for figuring out numbers. The counting phase is that they always want to know how long it takes to do things or get somewhere, they also want to count EVERYTHING. He counts the stairs in buildings, the silverware and cups when doing the dishes, the steps when we're walking, and the seconds when we're driving! On the drive home from school this morning, Rodney just started counting for no reason and continued all the way home. (He is home sick today with a high fever but still up and around with medicine) When we pulled into the driveway he announced "it takes us 200 seconds to get home"! In reality it takes us longer but he didn't start counting right away. It was an interesting ride home for me, wondering what in the world he was counting, having Joey jabbering away in the background---my attempt at listening to music ended real fast! Then the counting was interspersed with things like, "I"m going to be a bad driver when I grow up because I crash a lot on car video games." And "what day is today", "what are we doing tomorrow", "I'm going to miss PE today" and all sorts of other observations and questions! That's why it only took us 200 seconds to get home! My favorite is when I get asked how far away we are from home and I answer "5 minutes, but you can't count it!" because there have been times when I've said that and then he starts counting and is planning on counting out loud the whole way home. I have to draw the line there! I can handle a couple hundred seconds in countdown but not that many! That of course doesn't stop them from looking at the clock to see how close I am to my estimate of getting home, I'm getting pretty good at estimating times around here. They also all know about speed limit signs and my spedometer, so if I ever go over that magic number they'll let me know-- Thank goodness I don't speed or that would bother me! :) Rodney is really good with numbers so this is sometimes a fun thing to experience, he is always adding things together and getting it right, I think he might have some of his Dad's math talent! So that is all for right now, I've been informed of how many minutes I've been on here (someone is watching me) so maybe I should go be productive now?! Oh, by the way, it only takes 30 seconds to make a bed so why are the beds still unmade? :)

The 8th World Wonder!

This of course is my Valentine's Day post so I get to be mushy! :) We had a wonderful Valentine's Day up in New York with John's family, John and I went out to dinner to one of our favorite places, The Century Manor. That is where we went for our first anniversary dinner! It is a beautiful place and they serve wonderful food! They had a pianist there, Carol Swenson that played on "The Love Boat" TV show for 12 years! So that was a treat to hear her play all evening. After dinner we went to a movie, Confessions of a Shopaholic which made my husband appreciate all the shopping I don't do! It was a pretty good chick flick! The slide show I've made shows all the ways that John is wonderful, he is an amazing husband, father, brother, friend, etc..... I think he is perfect! He does so many things but always makes time for his family and is completely dedicated to the Lord, which is the most important thing! We couldn't be more blessed to have him in our lives! We have so much fun together and life is wonderful! He definitely is the "8th World Wonder"! :)

The Documents of Freedom

We went to the National Archives the beginning of December and it was amazing! They were doing some cleaning/upkeep on the building so there was scaffolding all on the front and I took pictures because it was so huge! Also it was interesting that there was a line of workers all the way up the middle and they were handing poles one at a time up over their head to the worker above them, it was really cool to watch! We got inside and there were tons of maps and documents from before we were officially a country and that was fun to see the different boundaries for things, also neat to see the original old documents and treaties. Then we went to the main Rotunda and had to wait in line about 20 minutes because they only let so many people into the viewing area at a time to see the Declaration of Independence, The Constitution, and the Bill of Rights. Outside the Rotunda while we waited they had a display of the Magna Carta and that was an exhibit which is fairly new. I had no idea what this document was before now but in a nutshell it is the contract the King over in England would sign saying he would follow certain laws to be fair to the people. This was the basis for the revolution of the colonists over here, among other things they thought were unfair. The King was not upholding the Magna Carta that he had signed and so the law was being broken. This document dates back to the 13th century! It was very enlightening to learn about it and see the original! In the Rotunda we could only take pictures without a flash and the lights were not that great for picture taking, as you can see! These pictures were actually BLACK on my camera and I've been able to lighten them enough to kind of see who is in them! :) The Constitution is in the cases under the yellow lights (you can see those good in the pictures!) and then The Declaration and Bill of Rights is in cases next to it. There were also documents and photos leading up to and after those points in history that were in the Rotunda that we got to look at while we waited in line to see the documents. I still can't believe we looked at the real thing!! It is really awe inspiring to see the beginnings of this country and what people went through to give us what we have today. Our kids thought is was pretty neat although I'm sure they think it's mostly cool because it was like a "National Treasure" moment! We love those movies! :) After the Rotunda we got to go into the section where they have some of the declassified documents and saw some of the classified things from the past wars, they had a lot of hands on exhibits there for the kids and they got to read spy things and make movies from real war clips and watch it on a big screen. We had a great day and even the elevator was cool because the Declaration of Independance was engraved inside the door!

PS Here is a link for the Magna Carta that tells more about it--very awesome!
http://www.archives.gov/exhibits/featured_documents/magna_carta/

The National Archives Pictures!

Sledding on the Floor!

Okay, I figured I'd better post on here again before I get out of the habit! Not being able to download new pics kind of puts a kink in things! Maybe next week we will get out and get our computer thing figured out. I think I might have some christmas pics I haven't posted so I'll have to check that out. Everything is going good here, actually today I am sick and so is Rodney but tomorrow should be better. The kids have been passing this thing around and it's only a matter of time before the MOM gets it! Being around the sick kids all day and not getting very much sleep at night is enough to overpower anyone! Oh well. We had some snow and an ice storm last week, the kids were out of school 3 1/2 days, we loved it! I love it when my kids get to stay home and play! We have a hill in our backyard that is good for sledding but they don't get that much snow around here so when it snowed we didn't have a sled and there was no way I was going to go drive and get one that day, there is a reason they cancel school! So I decided we could have an adventure and find something to make a sled--I was thinking cardboard and garbage bags! :) So I went to the basement to attack all our moving boxes and find the perfect cardboard to sled on. WELL, I found something better! Scraps of vinyl flooring (linoleum)!! There were a couple pieces that were rectangle shaped and very much scrap pieces so I brought them up and showed them to my kids and told them to sled with the vinyl side down and it was the best thing EVER!!! They were going so fast and stayed out there for about 2 hours! I think the flooring worked better than a sled would have since we really didn't have that much snow! Then the next day the ice storm hit and covered everything with a nice layer of slick ice---very awesome for sliding on! John's work was canceled that day too so we had a family sledding party and it was so fun, John and I would hold Joey and go down with him and we had a blast! We even had one of our babysitters come over with her siblings the next day and ask if the kids wanted to play and so we told her what we were doing and they loved it! Even the teenagers were having fun, you wouldn't believe how fast they were going! They played that day for another two hours, it was great! The flooring broke up eventually because it gets so brittle when it's frozen but it lasted long enough. We did have one injury, on Rodney's face of course. That kid has bad luck with his face and injuries! He fell off his sled and face-planted in the ice and it cut him on the cheek and above the eyebrow, poor little kid! But it's looking better now and almost gone. Two weeks ago he was running through the kitchen, slipped and hit his lip on a bar stool and got a really bad fat lip. His two times with stitches have also been on his eyebrow (the same one)--like I say--bad luck with face owies!! I own several tubes of neosporin and I"m trained in first aid!! :)
Well, that's about it for now! Have a wonderful Monday and week!

PS I just finished a really good book, it's a short good read! The Christmas Sweater by Glenn Beck. very uplifting, John and I both liked it and now Johnny is reading it next!

Take Time to Smell the Flowers!

"God gave us memory so we could smell the roses in December" It's not December anymore but it's still cold for a while so enjoy images of warm spring and summer from years past!

Salt or No Salt?

Okay, I must get some votes on this! I like salty foods, John does not so I only put salt in my food. I've heard several other instances where the woman likes salt and the man does not. Anyone else out there want to give me a little survey of who likes the salt in your house? :)

Does the Tooth Fairy dig through garbage?!

Here's the story: Rodney lost his second little tooth last week and was so excited! The first one was more exciting but he is still new to this so the excitement still runs high! He actually pulled out his tooth, it didn't involve me at all, it was quite suprising. So, he liked this little tooth so much he wanted to keep it. I said that would be fine, he could give it to the tooth fairy whenever he wanted. So we got a little snack baggie and it was put safely on his shelf. Well a few days ago he was playing with it, and probably deciding when it was worth it to give it up for a dollar! The next thing I know is that little tooth is lost! I had been cleaning and was not watching out for the snack baggie with the nearly invisilbe little tooth in it! Since I didn't know the tooth was missing I wasn't checking garbage before I threw it away and had no idea if it was in the garbage or not. Rodney searched all over the house and I promised him we would go dig through the garbage soon--this all happened right before it was time to go to school of course! So we had to get out the door, that's when anything will get promised just to get the kids to school on time! It was garbage day so I promised not to put the garbage out until we had checked the garbage inside it. So a few days go by and I mention to several people around here that they should go help Rodney find his tooth and hoping that someone else would dig through the stinky garbage! No such luck! Tonight after the kids went to bed I gave in and decided to dig through the garbage, garbage day is on monday again and we can't wait through another one! Unfortunately this story has a sad ending because even though I looked through every piece of slimy garbage and checked lots of used snack baggies I did not find the precious little tooth! So now the next stage is to let Rodney know it's up to him to find it in the house! The things the tooth fairy does for the sweet little children! :)

5 Things Tag--I got tagged! So fun! :)

5 things I was doing 5 years ago:
*Didn't have wrinkles!
*Only had 3 children
*Getting ready to buy our first house!
*Traveled to Coeur d'Alene every other week
*Weight Watchers

5 Things on my to do list for today:
*Keep Joey's fever down by keeping medicine on schedule
*Take a nap with Joey--up late and early with him
*Look at the laundry to be folded--I'm sure it won't actually get folded! :)
*Prepare Primary lesson
*Call my mom :)

5 things I would do with a million dollars:
*Get completely out of debt
*give to charity/church
*stock up retirement accounts
*help family members
*Go on a Disney Cruise!

5 Places I have lived:
*Coeur d'Alene, Idaho
*Provo, Utah
*Laie, Hawaii
*Mansfield, Ohio
*Alfred, New York

5 jobs I have held:
*Housecleaner (in high school, my own house doesn't show it too often!)
*Cashier at hardware store
*Post Office person
*Teacher at Missionary Training Center
*Data entry at a bank

5 People I tag:
Dana
Katie
Dedra
Jackson
Becky

Merry Christmas!

We had a wonderful Christmas vacation! We just got back after two weeks up at John's parents house in New York state. They live about a hour and a half south of Buffalo. They had some snow but not too much so the kids had fun playing in it. We were able to visit with cousins and aunts and uncles. All of John's siblings live up there in the same area so everyone was home for the holidays! We took the kids ice skating and to a movie, played in the snow, made fudge and lots of yummy recipes. Some new recipes and some old favorites that are family traditions! We played lots of games, card games, board games, video games--anything you can think of! Some of us got sick but we survived! It was a really nice time and we feel so blessed that we are able to have this time to spend with John's family, we don't ususally get to see them this much! I have lots of pictures of course but I don't know if I can download them. My sweet husband has informed me that my pictures have used up most of the space on our hard drive! Who knew you could actually do that? Well, thousands of pictures apparently do! Sooo we are going to get another external hard drive to transfer the pictures to! He is so nice to me! :) So it might be a few days before I download new pictures, we don't really know what happens when you max out the hard drive space, there is only 2GB left and my camera card is 2GB! Well, I'll catch up more later but I hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas and New Years!!!!

Joey's Hair pictures

Joey's Hair!!!

Yes, I cut it yesterday! I knew I had too many people holding me to my promise! I was going to take Joey in to someone to cut it but I was cutting off some of his ringlets to save and decided to just cut it myself with our Flowbie! Those things are the greatest for cutting little kids' hair, no matter how much they move, it always cuts the same length! So I put on a baby einstein movie, gave Joey some fishie crackers and did the haircut! He looks so cute and so much older! We've decided he is the missing link between Johnny and Rodney, he looks so much like each of them! Joey keeps feeling his hair to see where it all went, it's really funny! I made a slide show of before and after pictures so enjoy!

Field Trip Pictures

The Wheels on the Bus go 'round and 'round"....

Hi! Today Julia had a field trip and I got to go as a chaperone! We had so much fun! We took the bus into Washington D.C. to go to the Air and Space Museum, they are starting the astronomy section in third grade so this is a good intro to the subject! We watched the IMAX movie Black Holes on the planetarium ceiling screen! It was amazing! The whole domed ceiling was the screen and it was a really neat movie. We took the kids around to see the Wright Brothers airplane, we saw how they live in the space station--everyone has to know how astronauts go to the bathroom and eat! Very important information for third graders! We saw real rockets, touched a moon rock, saw the pod for the first manned orbit around the earth (it was very small and no room to go to the bathroom!) We looked through telescopes and played with crystals and the light spectrum, saw our heat signature on camera and saw Sputnik. I had 5 kids in my group and we had a wonderful time! Julia has some nice friends and a great teacher, Mr. Tanzi. After we loaded the bus up, we were driving on Pennsylvania Ave by the Capitol and President Bush's motorcade came through! The guy sitting next to us saw Pres. Bush in the limo and everyone was really excited to see all the flashing lights, sirens, and police vehicles! So it was a great day and Julia said her school day went by really fast, that happens when you're gone from school playing! :)

Joey's Hair

Okay, so I know I need to cut Joey's hair! I just wanted to let everyone know it will be sometime this week!--There, I committed to it! (I"m so proud of myself) I"m going to wash it one more time and cut off the really long cute ringlets for me to save and then I"ll take him somewhere so someone else can cut it! I have no idea how to cut his hair? I cut John, Johnny's, and Rodney's but I think Joey's first haircut will be by someone else! Sooo... when it happens I will post pictures of our new little boy!

Bucket List?

Copy this list to your own blog and highlight those things you've done. I didn't make this up, I got it from NaDell's blog! Have fun!

1. Started your own blog
2. Slept under the stars
3. Played in a band
4. Visited Hawaii
5. Watched a meteor shower
6. Given more than you can afford to charity
7. Been to Disneyland/Disneyworld
8. Climbed a mountain
9. Held a praying mantis
10. Sang a solo
11. Bungee jumped
12. Visited Paris
13. Watched a lightning storm at sea
14. Taught yourself an art from scratch
15. Adopted a child
16. Had food poisoning
17. Walked to the top of the Statue of Liberty
18. Grown your own vegetables
19. Seen the Mona Lisa in France
20. Slept on an overnight train
21. Had a pillow fight
22. Hitchhiked
23. Taken a sick day when you’re not ill--school
24. Built a snow fort
25. Held a lamb
26. Gone skinny dipping
27. Run a marathon
28. Ridden in a gondola in Venice
29. Seen a total eclipse
30. Watched a sunrise or sunset
31. Hit a home run
32. Been on a cruise
33. Seen Niagara Falls in person
34. Visited the birthplace of your ancestors
35. Seen an Amish community
36. Taught yourself a new language-Baby Talk?
37. Had enough money to be truly satisfied
38. Seen the Leaning Tower of Pisa in person
39. Gone rock climbing
40. Seen Michelangelo's The David
41. Sung karaoke
42. Seen Old Faithful geyser erupt
43. Bought a stranger a meal at a restaurant
44. Visited Africa
45. Walked on a beach by moonlight
46. Been transported in an ambulance
47. Had your portrait painted
48. Gone deep sea fishing
49. Seen the Sistine Chapel in person
50. Been to the top of the Eiffel Tower in Paris
51. Gone scuba diving or snorkeling--both
52. Kissed in the rain
53. Played in the mud
54. Gone to a drive-in theater
55. Been in a movie
56. Visited the Great Wall of China
57. Started a business
58. Taken a martial arts class
59. Visited Russia
60. Served at a soup kitchen
61. Sold Girl Scout cookies
62. Gone whale watching
63. Got flowers for no reason
64. Donated blood, platelets or plasma
65. Gone sky diving
66. Visited a Nazi Concentration Camp
67. Bounced a check
68. Flown in a helicopter
69. Saved a favorite childhood toy
70. Visited the Lincoln Memorial
71. Eaten caviar
72. Pieced a quilt
73. Stood in Times Square
74. Toured the Everglades
75. Been fired from a job
76. Seen the Changing of the Guards in London
77. Broken a bone
78. Been on a speeding motorcycle
79. Seen the Grand Canyon in person
80. Published a book
81. Visited the Vatican
82. Bought a brand new car
83. Walked in Jerusalem
84. Had your picture in the newspaper
85. Read the entire Bible
86. Visited the White House
87. Killed and prepared an animal for eating--spearfishing
88. Had chickenpox
89. Saved someone's life-Baby
90. Sat on a jury
91. Met someone famous--Pres. Hinckley, Pres. Monson
92. Joined a book club
93. Lost a loved one
94. Had a baby
95. Seen the Alamo in person
96. Swam in the Great Salt Lake
97. Been involved in a law suit
98. Owned a cell phone
99. Been stung by a bee--on the eye!
100. Totally copied a post from someone elses' blog to your own--this one!

Clean Clothes Hamper?

This is another laundry blog! This morning I was having the kids bring down their clothes hampers so I could start washing everything. I noticed the other day that the boys' clothes hamper was half full of clean clothes. That happens when I tell them to clean their room-- Most of what is on the floor goes in the hamper, clean and dirty clothes! So I have told them that I'm going to charge them a quarter a piece of clothing for whatever I find in their hamper that is clean! It's really sad when I find shorts (it's winter and no one has worn shorts for a while) and folded clothes in there! I told the boys to get the clean clothes out of their hamper before they brought it down so they didn't lose their money, I'm nice so I give them chances! Rodney really didn't want to do it but the money thing is a pretty big motivator for him! So I was helping him decide how to tell if things are really dirty, (lint doesn't count as dirt) and when he was done he had two piles, one clean and one dirty and they were the same size! I told him the lesson he needed to learn was that when you put clothes in the hamper make sure they are dirty and if they aren't, don't put them in there! His solution was this "Well, we should have a clean clothes hamper and a dirty clothes hamper" My reply to that was " the clean clothes hamper is called your dresser drawers!" It sure would be nice if those dresser drawers got used! :)

Empire State Building pics

The Empire State Building

When my Mom and sister were here we did so many things it might take me a while to record them! When we were in New York City we were able to go to the top of the Empire State Building! It was amazing and so fun! The day was supposed to be kind of rainy but the rain hadn't come yet, my mom said she had been praying for good weather while we were there and it worked! :) We had beautiful weather for going to the top of the building and as soon as we got down, the top was enclosed in fog and you couldn't see anything! You can see in some of the pictures that the weather is changing. I have a picture at the end of the slideshow showing the fog. So we felt really blessed that we were able to see from the top. The view was incredible of the city and we could even see the Statue of Liberty out in the distance! The wind picked up pretty good while we were up there and the kids loved that-- we could also feel the fog rolling in, our hands started getting sticky and it got colder so that was kind of cool to be up so high and feel the change in weather so fast. We rode one elevator up to the 80th floor and then got on another elevator to go up to the 86th floor. It was kind of scary looking down at first but there are so many bars that it would be hard to be un-safe up there! The kids got to look through those binoculars--luckily I had brought my quarters--and they got some good views with that. The taxi cabs looked like little toy cars and one of the streets we could see was completely packed with taxi cabs! Crazy traffic and drivers there! We got some pictures of the very top spire of the building and John and I even remembered to get our "romantic" kiss at the top! (he had one kid on his back, one was hanging onto my leg and we were about to be blown away by the wind!) The romance from Sleepless in Seattle had to have taken some work up there! :) We loved it and had a fabulous time!!!

ps I have noticed that the captions on the slide show are showing up one picture early and I can't change it, so that is why they don't match all the time! :)

Holiday Shopping Help!!!

Okay, so I'll tell you what I"ve done! This is a very brave thing I have done for myself (and our bank account!) I have put all of my store emails into the "junk" folder for the rest of the season! yeah me! I think I get an emai from like 10 stores everyday and I just delete, delete, delete, BUT sometimes I see the good sales they are having and I"m tempted! I THOUGHT I was done shopping for christmas and I"ve done most of it online to avoid stores and to get good sales. But two days ago I received another list: the kids informed of the toy drive at school, John told me had to have a gift for a party at work, I remembered a cousins birthday on Dec 20th that I needed a gift for and when we went to sign up at the gym, if we brought in a toy, they waived the $80 sign up fee! (pretty valuable toy!) So I ventured over to walmart again yesterday and got all the presents and sent them off with everyone this morning. Then I saw the toysrus add today and they are having such a great sale that I had to go over there and check it out because they had something that was on the list I needed and it was on sale half off. So I went there and of course found a couple more things. Sooo I am really truly officially done with everything that involves a toy I think! I still have neighbor gifts and christmas cards if I end up being that organized this year. For all of you that didn't get our christmas card last year, I'm sorry! I actually had them, they were nice family picture cards from Costco and I still have them! They were in that infamous kitchen cupboard pile I have, I just never got all the address on them! So, back to shopping, since I am done I no longer need to see what everyone has for sale and then I won't know what good sales I am missing! Now it's time for us to put up our tree (a fake one that doesn't need water and can't be eaten) put up lights outside and enjoy the holiday season! Have a geat day and weekend!!! :)