The Future

Annika brought home her last journal from school. It is usually entertaining to read, but as she is moving up to first grade, I found this entry to be especially poignant.
And cute.

It says: I can't wait to grow up and live my life.

***Sniff***

Originals

I have been playing around with Adrienne's hair a little bit. It is finally thickening up a little so it makes for better experimentation.

These are some cute hairdo's I came up with on my own:

Getting ready for cool summer hair on a cutie.

Stuck

Nathan is at that difficult age where you still long for the childish things, but know you are growing out of them at the same time.
It is hard to finally give up trick or treating. How do you know when you are too old for Sesame Street? What about Tom and Jerry? And Santa?

Sigh

The other day we went to Burger King. All the kids ran in and grabbed a crown and immediately plopped it on their heads.
After we ordered the food and sat down, I noticed that Nathan looked like he felt a little foolish, and was constantly looking around. I told him I thought he might think he was too old for Burger King crowns. He told me he isn't too old, but if anyone walks by he will take it off immediately.

Stuck in the middle of childhood and adolescence.

Life is going to get interesting real soon...

We've Got Talent

Susan Boyle better watch out...

Kade did his Karate routine for the first grade talent show. It was different and interesting and he did a really great job. He has been asked to do it for the whole school talent show next week. He is incredibly excited to be able to show everyone his talent.

Excuse the camera work. I had the camcorder for our video collection, and the camera for the blog going at the same time.


Nathan has started playing baseball and is enjoying it. I privately think that he enjoys practicing with dad more than playing the game itself. It is nice to have Burke around a little more this spring.

Annika and Adrienne will be having their annual dance review coming up in a couple of weeks, so I will have some video of my little dancers later.
Adrienne just developed a new talent she has been sharing with our family, and I thought I would share with you:

!?! At Midnight

At midnight a few weeks ago all was silent in the house (except for me and the History Channel), when I heard that super obnoxious sound that always seems to begin at the evil hour of midnight.

It was the chirping of the smoke alarm in our great room. The one with the ceiling so high I would have to go and fish the ladder out of the garage to change the battery.

So I did what any normal wife does-I nudged my husband until he was awake enough to hear the chirping himself.

He roused himself out of a sound slumber and went to change the battery. I came out to watch and offer all of my helpful tips and hints. Definitely appreciated, I'm sure.

The battery was changed, we trudged back to bed when the chirping resumed.

What!?!

After some muttering under his breath, Burke got the stool back out to "take another look".

I offered some more helpful tips, got some more muttering in response, and decided it might be better to keep my helpful ideas to myself.

As he was checking it all out, he pulled the alarm down a little more to take a closer look. Unbeknownst to us, there is a default type setting that makes the alarm go off when one of the electrical connections becomes loose or disconnected, or generally unhappy.

All I know is that within about 3 seconds, all the alarms in the house are going off at the same time.

@*%!@?!!!

Burke and I desperately try everything we can think of to get it to turn off, but are having no success.

We then start looking through all the "house stuff" to see if we can find the instruction manual to figure out how to shut the stupid thing off.

No luck.

Then we boot up the computer to find the website to the company and see if they have any suggestions.

Still no luck.

Just when I was about to perform an exorcism,

my husband figured it out, reconnected the offending electrical wire, and everything was silent again.

Silent?!

Yes, all four of my children slept through the whole thing! About 8-10 minutes.

Now that is really scary.

The next night for FHE we talked about the alarm and asked them if they had heard it the night before. Annika, Kade, and Nathan had, but they said they were too tired to get out of bed and see what was the matter.

HUH?!?

We decided that was going to be the topic of our FHE. We talked about the smoke alarm, what to do if you hear it, how to get out, how to open their windows (no Annika, you can't open this just to say hi to your friends), and where to go to wait for help.
We did the drill four times, so hopefully they got the message. The kids fair we went to (a few posts down) had a really great trailer from a local fire department that taught the kids about fire. It had some kind of smoke that filled it up, then the exit door was hot, so the kids had to crawl through the thick smoke to get out the window. The kids said it was kind of scary, but I am so glad they did it.
What really scares me is not knowing if they know what to do when it really counts. We will keep working on it.

Grocery Deals

I went grocery shopping.

I got:

Eight boxes of cereal

Two three packs of juice boxes

One package of plastic bags

and

Two gallons of milk (one is chocolate, for Burke)

Best of all...

I only paid $1.04 out of pocket for all of it!

Even better:

As I was feeling a little lucky, I opened all the boxes of cereal (not the actual bags) and found two $5 gift cards inside!

Happy....Happy....Happy

We have had a busy weekend and I have lots to post.

Stay tuned...

Show Me the Money...er, Ham!

I just got another rebate today! Woo Hoo! Gotta love free money.

This was one of my better deals. I have to record it for posterity.

I can hear my great-great-great-grandchildren now:

"My great-great-great-grandmother once got paid for buying a ham. Wow, I am so proud to be her descendent."

Anyway, this is how the deal went down:
There was a sale on some Unilever items at our local grocery store. If you purchased $50 worth of the sale items, you got an instant $20 off the purchase of a ham.
I got $50 worth of items for about $30 after the coupons, included in this I got two hams worth $30, but had coupons for those as well, so I paid $7 out of pocket for two hams after the instant store rebate.

Clear as mud?

Now, there was a mail in rebate through Unilever at the same time for $20 back if you purchased $40 worth of Unilever products (which I did at the above sale).
I also had a beer rebate (see this link for more information about beer rebates) for $10 off a Hormel Ham.
So...

I made money on this deal. About $23!

Yippee!

Weekend Fun, For Free!

We spent Saturday morning at a little fair just for kids. I made sure to get there pretty early (don't bring it up to Burke, he's not happy we waited for 45 minutes for it to start).

They had free bike helmets for the first bunch of kids that were present, and I wanted us to be that bunch of kids. Despite finding out we were in the wrong line, we were able to get a helmet for each of our kids. They even fitted them to each child correctly, and Adrienne's came with some elbow and knee pads (I think we will give those to Annika).

After we had the helmets safely stowed in the car, we ventured out to see what else there was to offer.

There was a bike rodeo, face painting (that was still faintly seen on Annika's face on Sunday), a cool trailer designed to teach about fire safety (it actually filled with "smoke" and the door really got hot so the kids had to use the window), and a climbing wall...

Kade is afraid of heights but finally gave it a shot after some coaxing. He only got a few feet off the ground, but at least he gave it a shot.

There were also things just for nerds like us...

Nathan was able to answer some Star Wars trivia and won a couple of trading cards that were pretty nifty. Uncle Jeremy must be so proud...

There was also a trailer that had two seats that would collide at 5 MPH, so the kids could see what it feels like to be in a crash. I also tried it, and it was pretty powerful for only 5 MPH. I got this super short movie of Annika and Nathan's turn to be in the collision.

Annika's reaction makes me wonder if she will ever have the privilege of driving my car.

After the fun morning, we headed to Grandma and Grandpa's (aka our greenhouse) to celebrate Mother's Day. We had some yummy dinner and dessert and loaded up on plants for our vegetable garden this summer. I can taste the tomatoes already.
Adrienne and her cousin played dress up at grandma's house.

Considering that outfit, I doubt she will ever get to leave the house after the age of 12.

Good Deal!

Things that make me happy: hugs, hot chocolate, honesty, an empty laundry hamper...

and a Good Deal!

I went to the grocery store today and got all of this:

for $1.66, including sales tax!

Happy Dance.

On second thought, maybe it is a little pathetic such things make me happy and show up on my blog.
Don't you love Adrienne's pose? She never met a camera she didn't like.

Mother's Day

It was a wonderful day. Breakfast in bed, dinner made, some wonderful cards. All of it designed to make me feel special. It did.
One of my favorite things was actually a sheet of paper Nathan filled out at a restaurant we went to a couple of weeks ago. It said "My Mom should win Mother of the Year because..."
Nathan wrote this:
She is kind and generes and looks out for me and she loves me and does things for me to I think she should win mother of the year.
So sweet!
Annika's teacher had the kids in her class write down their favorite recipes and put them in a book. This was Annika's recipe for Angel Food Cake:
With flour and a couple of eggs and some sugar. Put everything into a bowl and mix it together. Put in a pot that has a circle in the middle and bake for 20 hours. Then take it out and put whipped cream and strawberries on it. Put whipped cream all around and strawberries all around. That's it.
Not bad for a 6 year old. But I don't think I trust her to bake anything quite yet.
Kade gave me a sweet little coupon book good for some chores. Woo hoo. I'll definitely use that.
My husband gave me a picnic table. I am so excited to have it because now we can eat outside occasionally. We actually ate lunch outside today. It was beautiful weather and we enjoyed it. Especially the "family jump" on the trampoline after dinner. It was fun.
Overall, the day was nice and relaxing. Thanks to my great kids and husband. Love you guys!

The Karate Kade

Kade just filled up his third star card at Karate. It is basically a reward system for attendance, skills, and behavior.
He is very proud of himself, and had to take the three framed star cards all the way to Grandma and Grandpa's to show them.

These ladies are his senseis.

He is going to be in the first grade talent show in a couple of weeks. He has been practicing Bo Jitsu Sho Dan for the program, and is very, very, excited about it. Now I just have to sew all those teeny, tiny little patches on his gi (uniform) to get ready for the big show.

April Showers, May Flowers

We have had some really beautiful flowers blooming in our yard. Especially the dandelions. They grow so effortlessly...
I took some pictures of the more desirable ones in our flower beds.

These are blossoms from our weeping cherry.

These are lobelia, I think. They are so pretty I really like them, whatever they are.

These are bleeding hearts. Annika's favorite.

This is creeping phlox, given to me by my mom. It blooms in the spring and is very pretty. We are currently in the market for some more colors because we like it so much.

We also found a giant earthworm while we were out there taking pictures and pulling weeds. It is honestly the biggest worm I have ever seen. Annika tried to pick it up and tore off the back half. These pictures are of what was left after the amputation. I stuck my finger in there to give some perspective on its size.

It is so nice to have some beautiful things growing in the yard after the long winter.

Burke got some great pictures of a spectacular rainbow after the showers that gave us the above flowers.

New Hair Toys and Baby Chains

Yes, another post about hair. I figured I'd warn you so you can stop now if you are completely uninterested in hair.

But I love it.

I just got some new curlers for Annika's hair. They are really easy to use, and more comfortable to sleep in. The results were so pretty.




I ended up doing her hair and taking these pictures before she had changed her clothes for church, so she is still wearing her glam pj's when I took these "after" pictures:

I finally tried one of my favorite styles on Adrienne's baby hair the other day. It turned out really cute, despite the constant movement of the head. There are a few little fly-away wispys, but I think it looks good for a 3 year old. (It only lasted about 3 hours, and was not nap-proof, however).

Sunday Funnies

Sunday....
Hmmm. Is it really a day of rest? After Sacrament Meeting today, I don't think so. It seemed like someone fed all of my kids a big dose of caffeine or some other super-stimulant right before we left for church. They were all being little stinkers at some point or another.

Here are some of the highlights:

Annika wanted to sit on Burke's lap, but she was being so wiggly. For some reason, Burke doesn't understand that when you are doing sacrament meeting with a bunch of kids, sitting and meditating is not in the cards. He was trying to get her to settle down, and I heard him whisper into her ear, "You are supposed to be thinking about Jesus."
Annika answered, "Well, I just want to think about me!"

*sigh*

Kade decided to bear his testimony. It was short but sweet and to the point. When he came to sit down, he told me that it was really scary but kind of fun. I thought that combination was a little strange so I asked him to explain what me meant. He said that it was scary to get up in front of everyone, but that he liked bearing his testimony because he felt the Spirit.
Then he asked if he could do it again.

I gave Sharing Time in Primary today. I felt a lot better about this one than the last one I did. I wasn't too nervous and I actually enjoyed it this time. I have come to realize that is the key. The kids can always tell if you are enjoying what you are doing. Very intuitive little people, they are.
My sharing time was about the ordinances of the gospel, and I am proud to say I came up with the idea myself, which is amazing, because I do not have a creative bone in my body. I am generally really good at stealing other people's ideas.

I am slowly but surely getting up on my feet and feeling a little more comfortable in my role in Primary. But...

We need to plan a quarterly activity. I HATE them!

I know that is a terrible attitude to have, but I do. When we had them in Michigan, I would have nightmares the whole week before the activity, and it was super stressful for me (see "basket case" below). I was pretty comfortable with most things I had to do in Primary, but the activities never did come easy.

Always another hurdle, right?

I had my first baptism as the PP on Saturday. It was really a good experience. I am so grateful for a husband who is a worthy and willing priesthood holder. I am also grateful for whoever taught me how to lead music (somewhat)! Don't remember who it was, but it came in handy that afternoon!

Our Civic Duty

Date night? Not really.
Despite the fact that we did have a babysitter, and we were going somewhere in the car alone together, I wouldn't call it a date.
We went to the County Convention to elect leaders of our "party".
It was interesting. Things can often get downright testy when you have a room full of very opinionated people. (Which are the kind of people who show up to caucus and get elected as delegates in the first place.)
We did our duty, and got a free "date night dinner" out of it for our trouble: Subway sandwiches and chips, provided by the Party.
I forgot to take the camera with me for pictures, so no picts for this post.

It would have been fun to get one of the officer who pulled Burke over for speeding on the way to the convention, though.

Traffic school, here he comes.