Annual Bear Lake trip

We made our 'Annual Friends Bear Lake Trip' last weekend. It was so much fun. It was 48 hours of rest and relaxation with some of the greatest people I know. Most of us met in high school, and have remained good friends throughout the years.  All of us there this year currently live in Utah or Idaho which makes it easier to get together, since no one had to drive more than 3 hours. How did I get so lucky to have such amazing friends??? I love these people! (and these aren't even ALL of the high school friends that I am still super close to -- the rest of them live in Arizona -- but that is a bit of a drive for a weekend getaway!)

We chatted, ate, chatted, played games, went to the park, chatted, went to the chocolate shop, and chatted some more. For the most part I only see these people once a year so there is plenty to catch up on. Of course some high school stories are told and retold, but less than in years past. We mostly had discussions on current life stuff including parenting issues large and small -- many of us are starting to or soon will have teenagers in our homes. Yikes!

One of the best parts about this annual retreat is that the kids just go off and play nicely (for the most part) and leave the parents alone. We will go hours without hearing from our kids. Amazingly the kids (even though they haven't seen each other in a year) reconnect, get along, and pick up where they left off. It is awesome.

The 19 kids -- this represents the offspring from 5 families

Playtime at the Park -- we had perfect weather!!!

If you too were a Mighty Mountain Lion

(ie: you knew me in high school) --

see if you can identify which families the various kids are from:

We had four 12 year olds!!

Renae and Allie were inseparable

Colby with his buddy Kaiden

Sadie and her posse (Luke & Abby)

The view from the balcony -- looking out to the lake below 

The adults...staying up late playing games.

Notice on the clock it is just a couple minutes shy of midnight...late for us old fogies.

SOLD!?!

We were driving by "our new house" the other day (the house we are hoping to buy) -- as we do pretty much every day and saw this in the yard! A "SOLD" sign instead of a "For Sale" sign. Wow! I guess that means the house is really ours!! It makes it all seem so real, so official, so exciting, and so terrifying. Are we really ready for this??? Oh well, here goes. We are jumping in. We are still waiting on the loan underwriting, etc, etc so you never know what could happen, but it looks like it is pushing ahead full steam. If all goes as planned, we will close on June 8th.

It is a neat older home that needs some TLC. I will have lots of fun BEFORE and AFTER shots to share as we start fixing things up and making it our own.

Mother's Day

My Mother's Day was great.

It didn't start off ideally -- I had to teach the lesson in Relief Society at church. It was on Prayer...not too tough, but still I spent half the morning stressing about it. Eric and the kids did make me my favorite breakfast -- waffles!

After church we came home and took some pictures. Mason had a new suit since he just turned 12 and will be passing the sacrament at church. Colby found Mason's old suit coat (from when he turned 8 and got baptized) and it fits him already. The girls both had new "almost matching" dresses from a super deal at JCPenny's -- so I decided I needed some pictures. Mason was NOT happy. He had run home from church and was already in his comfy clothes. It was a battle to get him back in his suit, but I pulled out the "do it for your mother on Mother's Day" card. Desperate times call for desperate measures.
The lighting was bad (too much shadow), my camera is bad (it now keeps shutting off while trying to take pictures), and the photographer was Eric (who takes one picture and calls it good). But I love my kids so I love the pictures!

Sweet Sisters!



There was a picture of the boys.  Really. But lately, my camera doesn't always TAKE the pictures that you think it is taking. I watched Eric take a picture of Colby and a picture of Mason -- each separately. But neither picture was on the camera when I went to unload the pictures. Weird, huh!!

My Four Kiddos

We spent the rest of the day relaxing. Eric & the kids made dinner. Yummy. I wish I could say it was a day of peace and no fighting....now that would have been perfect. But it was real life.

We ended up the day by watching old home videos of the kids as babies/toddlers. We skipped around on the DVD's until we found each of them around age 1 1/2 - 2 years old. It was so fun to see each of them at the "just learning to talk" stage as they sang their ABC's or counted to 10 for the camera. How fast they grow.

One final story to share. Yesterday (so the day after mother's day) Renae and I were in the car together. We had the following conversation (recreated from my memory):

Renae: I don't know if I could ever be a mother.

Me: Why?

R: It is so much work! The cooking, the cleaning, the stress, the kids!

M: Yes, it is a lot of work. But it is worth it. It is the most important thing you could ever do.

R: Yeah, maybe. But I don't know if I can work that hard.

We then went on to talk about other related topics: working hard at jobs, finding a husband who helps with kids, changing diapers, etc.

I wish I had said something profound like "Everything worth having in life is hard work. Education, relationships, jobs, family." But I didn't. 

I hope I expressed to her that motherhood truly is worth every exhausting, icky, sticky, sweet, beautiful, precious minute. Every last minute!!!!

Mason's Birthday

4 days after Colby's birthday is Mason's birthday. Hooray, for April birthdays!

Mason turned 12 this year. Yep, that's right TWELVE! I can hardly believe it. That means he is old enough to join the "Young Men's Organization" at church, old enough to be in the full-fledged Boy Scouts, and old enough to make his mom feel old!

Mason is our 3rd parent in the family (which is sometimes good and sometimes not). He is growing up fast and becoming more and more like a teenager every day. He has a part time job now (mowing lawns) and his passion is everything electronic -- computer games, GPS, even Eric's old phones and PDA's entertain him. He also still enjoys Legos -- but instead of just playing with them, he makes animation movies with them.

First a blast from the past:

This is Mason at 3 years old.

Since I didn't have a digital camera before then,

this is the earliest picture I can post without scanning in a print (too much work!)

 Mason with his gifts...we are a PC game family (no xboxess wii's or playstations)

so he was SO excited to get his first handheld game controller for the computer.

No more mouse & keyboard combo to control his games.

Mason is a guy after my own heart -- not a cake fan.

So we had grasshopper pie (a mint/oreo pie) for dessert. YUMMY!

This was Mason's year for a friend party.

He invited over 5 guys from school.

They ate pizza, watched 2 movies & played a game.

It was SO easy. I just checked in on them now and then.

I sent the rest of the family away with Eric so I was just getting stuff done upstairs

while they hung out downstairs. It was awesome. 

I LIKE this kind of party!!!

Here they are playing the Candy Bar Game (a favorite from my childhood parties) --

you have to dress up in odd clothes (big shirt, boots, gloves, hat)

and then try to open and eat a candybar -- oh, with butter knives in your hands --

NOT EASY.

All the while, the rest of the kids are rolling the dice...if someone gets a double,

your turn is over and they get a chance to try. Frustrating, but fun.

Shooting M&M's at the house with Mason's new wrist sling shot. Boys!!

Colby's Birthday

Colby had a birthday a few weeks ago. Yep, I'm behind again!

Colby is a great kid. He always makes me smile. He is one of my biggest helpers and he is so full of energy and life. Colby is a social butterfly and seems to have an endless list of buddies that he wants to call or have come over. I wish I had that many friends! We love our Colbers. Hard to believe he is 7...when we moved to Idaho he was only 4! That doesn't seem possible!

I like to do a FLASHBACK picture on their birthday.

Here is Colby at about 10 months. Already a little troublemaker.

Colby wrote me a card telling me what he wanted for his birthday (kind of like a letter to Santa).

I wanted to include it here with original spelling.

WHAT I WANT FOR MY BIRTHDAY

Cake + Quiet + Coolness

+ Chocolate + Fun

Stay up + Hot Weels

+ Stuf that will

freek out Sadie +

electronics + LEGOS

+ Nerf gun

My favorite line is the "stuff that will freek out Sadie" -- what is that supposed to mean? Crazy brother!!! It still makes me laugh out loud. That is all SO Colby for you. That kid!

On to the pictures:

Colby was not happy about waiting to open his gifts.

He had to wait for the family to gather and then wait for the ancient camera to warm up.

Sorry buddy!

But the wait was worth it. Legos!!!

 This year Colby's dad made him a special cake.

A "from scratch cake" (ie: not from a cake mix box!) Wow!

It was covered in ganache too. I think Eric misses his days in the bakery just a little.

Then we stuck a Lego ship that Colby built on top. Voila!

 This was not Colby's "friend birthday party year" -- but let me explain.

We only let the kids have a "Friend Birthday Party" every other year (on the even birthdays).

It just saves me hassle and means I do 2 parties a year not 4.

I know the picture below LOOKS like a Friend Party...and it was the day after Colby's birthday,

but it's not what it looks like.

Colby had been asking and asking me for weeks, if he could have some friends over for a water gun fight. I think after we had ONE warm day he had this plan in his mind.

He even wrote a poem about it.

He would ask if he could have the water fight on days when it was 50 degrees outside.

Or 60 degrees and windy. He was devastated when I kept saying no.

They have early out days on Mondays so I just kept watching the weather for a nice Monday.

Wouldn't you know it, the Monday after his bday was forecast to be sunny and almost 80 degrees (unheard of for Rexburg in April).

What else could I do?? So we called up a few of his "best buddies"

-- and half the neighborhood kids

and he had a water fight of epic proportions.

We did water balloons, water guns, and eventually I just squirted them with the hose.

It was so fun.

It was NOT a birthday party -- no invitations, no cake, no presents, no favors, no fuss. Awesome!