Vday Shirts

Thanks for the shirts and jewelry Grammy! You made our day!

Beth is 6!!!

Valentines was a great day filled with terrifying reality - Beth has turned 6. That is two years away from getting baptized! She is SO old (don't tell me what that means about me and Dave). We celebrated with Dutch Babies and strawberries for breakfast (what else?), and a hot dog roast at the park for lunch. The park was a great move, I must admit. i loved not cleaning up my house after. Then later on in the evening Dave decided to go get Beth her free dozen from Krispy Kreme. The perfect end to a fun birthday.
Here are some pics.

This is Beth and the guitar cake Dave and I made her. She loved it.

This is Kate bringing Beth out to open her birthday present - a new bike. She looked like a circus clown on her old shorter one. Here is Beth and some of the kids at the party waiting for their turn to eat.

It wouldn't be a party without Red Rover!

And finally, the family at Krispy Kreme! (This is Kate's favorite outfit. It doesn't matter what I think - obviously).

Happy Birthday to my favorite little Valentine!

From Kate: Mom, remember that we can't get to heaven because of the grail? The what? The grail. Beth, tell Mom - Heavenly Father put a grail over our heads so we can't be there. Yeah - remember Mom? So we forget?

The Plan of Salvation according to a 4 year old. It includes a grail over our heads to keep us out - and help us to forget.

Votaws in the Spring

Why do I always feel like time on the computer is completely inefficient way to accomplish ANYTHING. I have always loved writing, but something about typing takes the passion right out of it. Dave would completely disagree.

Beth had to get glasses last week. The Dr told us that she has a "lazy eye". Not what you want to hear about your oldest beautiful girl. But it isn't what one might think hearing that name. She just has one eye that doesn't "read" to the brain because her sight is so different in the two eyes. This being said, she got her glasses and loves them because now she can SEE - I feel like an awful mom for not taking her in sooner. So if the glasses don't "turn on" the eye in a month, she'll get to be patched on her good eye. We're glad we caught it.

On the morning we went to pick up her glasses, she asked to have her hair cut. I refuse to be part of some mother controlling power struggle (although I would love to have been). So I cut it. Although I am TOTALLY sad, she looks beuatiful. And I must say, quite a but older. :)

Finally, (every time I close I think of my HS English teacher Mr. Vogt - who taught us how to wrap up a thought. I wonder where he is) we put in our garden. It will look nice once some of the seeds grow. I love this time in AZ. Beautiful!

We had some friends over last night and enjoyed Dave's masterful BBQ. That man is amazing in front of a grill. When I was growing up, eating chicken off the BBQ was always a charcoal like experience. But Dave makes it all so perfectly tasty! I think it must have something to do with patience. Something my gene pool runs inordinately short on. And Dave has in mass abundance. All in all it was a fun night - right up until the wall shelf almost fell on our friends' heads. Good way to end an evening. Dave has always hated that shelf there. I hate I told you so's...

Hawaii recap

Okay - two posts in a day. ANd I have a bunch of other stuff to do. Like clean my house. But Dave is driving me crazy about putting hawaii pics on the blog. I told him how to post. He smiles and tells me it's too hard for men. :) So here is because I love my husband.

The few, the Proud, the freezing. At Haleakala crater the morning of our bike ride down. It was beautiful and freezing. We awoke at 2:30am to get to the bike place to ge tto the crater before sunrise. I wish I could say it was totally worth the sleep. But we had fun. This is me, dave, amber, kade, and Britt. It was so windy, the boys kept jumping into the wind - it was fun.

Here we are in required "safety gear" about to bike downhill for about 30 miles. It was totally fun. Especially during the parts where the lady in the hummer began screaming at McKade because his "wife" (Brittney our sister) swerved directly in front of her. Gotta love hawaii. Britt is lucky she didn't kill herself (several times). And I am lucky I had a husband nice enough to wait for me. I enjoyed myself (some say I was just SLOW). I find that now that I have kids I am much less likely to take risks. Dave says I was always like that. He didn't know me as a teenager.

Here's my little beach bunny. When we did get near water and sand, I didn't waste time with a camera. So most of our shots are un beachy... Bummer.

Watching Kung Fu Panda on lounge chairs by the ocean. Grandma Ardy was a good sport.

The infamous snorkeling trip to molokini. Our marriage lasted. Much to my surprise. Next time, we won't take a 4 year old or 5 year old on a snorkeling trip IN THE OCEAN.

This is by far one of my most favorite moments of the trip. Grandma will probably kill me for posting her in her bathing suit, but I think she is darling. And Sophia sure loves her.My girls are so beautiful!



Sophia loves her Grandpa!

Christmas addiction

Okay, so I not only have a birthday in December, I also decided to get married four days before Christmas. I grew up hating the sugar cookie decorating birthday parties. I SWORE i'd never get married anywhere in the winter season. And I cursed myself. Because now I can't feel the Christmas spirit without a sugar cookie party and a hay ride. Since these activities are a little juvenile for my peer group, I torture my kids. So the other day I decided to throw a hay ride party - complete with sugar cookies. I stressed the day before (when I decided to have it and invite everyone I knew) that I wasn't inviting these people, or these people. But I decided I had to stop somewhere before I had a ward party for kids under 6 on my hands. Unfortunately at 4am on the morning of, I awoke with a panic attack. I began counting invites and kids. I came up with a number of 24. And I wasn't planning on having anyone help. Um. Dumb. Luckily (sorry kids that missed it), I only had 16 kids show up. My great dad came over to give a hay ride. My amazing baby sister came over for a little bit - long enough to get me through the sugar cookie beginnings. And Dave magically showed up home early at the end to help with the hay ride. Well thank heavens we are now in the Christmas spirit! :)

Then we got all ready for church on Sunday and I decided to again torture everyone with a picture. Did anyone feel like mentioning my 80's hair? HELLO!!! I spent so much energy on the girls for "Christmas Sunday" that I missed ME. (Not that they came out amazing in the picture anyway... ) Luckily, I'm not sure anyone noticed - thanks to my "i'm 30" shoes I bought on my birthday with my awesome husband. ( They have zebra striped fur on the sides and red patent leather buckles on the toes - "Naughty Monkey" -the brand name - says it all). Dave knows how to make me happy. :)