Rock Band!!!

There was an impromptu celebration put together last Wednesday for the Veigel family. Jake came into town for some interviews so we all gathered for some partying! We met up at Robintinoes. I had been craving it for months and was so glad we decided to go there.
The crew, minus Trent taking the pic. I love it when my family all gets together. We did miss Becky, James, and Jackson and Emily and the kidlets! Don't worry, we didn't have that much fun without you!

After dinner we headed up to our house for a little Rock Band.

This was a first for most of us. I have played Guitar Hero a couple times and I love that Rock Band has vocals and drums added to it! I think everyone will agree that Jake's rendition of Testify will live forever in our hearts.

My kids wanted to play so badly, but when they did it didn't last very long because there skills just don't match up to the older generation! They did have fun for the few seconds we let them play though.

Thanks everyone for the night: Cade, Luke, and Kimmy for supplying the Rock Band, Mom and Dad for dinner, and Jake for coming into town so we had an excuse for a celebration! I am already looking forward to the next party!

The Day Has Come!!!

I have been waiting and waiting (not so patiently) for these pictures of my kids. A genius photographer took them a while ago and I really couldn't be happier with the outcome. Karina is honestly magical when it comes to taking pictures. If you were at our "photo shoot" you would be amazed as I am that she was able to get SO many cutes pictures. My kids are not the best models. Don't get me wrong, they are the cutest kids around, but they are the most uncooperative as well!


I LOVE this picture. I have always wanted one with all of my kids feet. And I love the words she put underneath. I think this is going up in our TV room right by the kitchen. Just look at all those little toes!

This picture is classic. It describes the photo shoot perfectly. Andrew-angry and bitter. Aiden-always smiling! Oakley-sweet and very photogenic. Paige-always goofing off and doing whatever she felt like. Morgan-crying. This picture just captures it all!

Aiden. I love his crinkled nose smile!

Andrew. I was so surprised she got this picture. He really was so ornery! And I think this is the best picture we have ever gotten of him!

Oakley. Do I need to even say anything about this picture! She was sooo good at posing!

Paige. This is a perfect picture of her. I love her toothy opened mouth smile! Perfect for her personality!

Morgan. She was having some issues, but luckily we got a good shot of her. I love her timid, little smile. Shows her personality too!

My three girls. They are all just so stinkin cute! I love this shot of the three of them!

Since Oakley was being a wonderful model, Karina got a ton of cute ones of her. I love this little montage she put together. Isn't the middle one so cute! Well, they all are actually.

I love this candid shot. I was hovering around with treats trying to get them to sit still and it really wasn't working that great. But I love all their faces it in. So cute!

If anyone is in need of a photographer with mad skills call Karina. She has a natural gift and is so easy to work with. She put up with all five of my kids and even me. I get very ornery while trying to get my kids to smile for the camera! If you want to look at more of her work go here. I promise, you won't be disappointed if you hire her!

Value Bracelets

We made value bracelets for Young Women's last night and I LOVE mine. I love that they are a modge podge of shapes and colors. We ended the night with our own home made Fh'zookies! Perfect! It was a fun activity and we have a great bunch of girls, even though only 1/3 of them showed up last night. Thanks to Kimmy who gave me the idea for the bracelets (and I also copied her photography skills)! I am still mad at my camera. My group shots never turn out clear. I guess I should break out the manual or take a class or something. I HATE when my pictures are blurry!

So Long My Old Friend

I clean out my closet a lot. I don't have a ton of space for the amount I like to shop, hence my latest spending diet. My rule when cleaning things out is if I haven't worn it in a year its gone. However, my rule hasn't applied to my Dr. Martens. I haven't worn them in 8+ years, but can't seem to part with them either. They remind me of fun times from High School, early college days, hanging with friends, and, most importantly, meeting Trent. I just take them out of the closet, dust them off, and put them back in the corner to be overshadowed by my other more comfortable, stylish shoes. Well, the time has come for us to part ways. Maybe someone can make new memories with them...

So I bid farewell to my friend, the Dr Martens. I will forever remember the style and protection you gave my feet in years past. I hope your journey through the D.I. will be a good one and that you find someone to give you a better life than you've had the past years hiding in the shadows of my closet. Au revoir mon ami!

Like Mother Like Child

So much for teaching my kids the important things in life like reading, writing and arithmetic. Start with blogging and the rest will just fall into place....

Ahhh...JCPenney...The Good Old Days!

We had a little JCPenney reunion last night. Right after High School, my friend Melissa and I tried finding a job for weeks. Finally, we found the perfect one for us: The JCPenney Support Line! We were so excited (& pathetic) that we started dancing and celebrated by buying a Rainbo Snow. We were dorks...

I met a few people through out my time there, but these girls were my closest friends out of the bunch! We started reminiscing last night about the good old days; the funny (& strange) people, painting our fingernails, coloring, eating dry cereal, and so many other fun things. We really did have a great time and it made going to work a little easier...for me anyway.

Last night we went to the Mandarine for dinner. One of my all time favorite places to eat! Dinner didn't disappoint, except for Beth's noodles. Sorry Beth! After gorging ourselves with chinese food, we thought we would add a few extra pounds and head over to Firehouse Pizza to devour our own little FH'zzookies. This was a first for me and the only question I have is, 'why did I wait this long to try one?!?' They were the cutest most delicious things I have ever eaten. It has even surpassed my Molten Lava Cake fetish and that's saying something. And thanks to Melissa for paying for dessert! It is a true friend that will buy you a little piece of heaven!!!
Julie, Beth, Me, and Melissa. I love this picture of us (even if you girls thought I was a nerd for wanting to take one!) and I love that we were able to get together after so many years. We are now all married with children and enjoying this new stage of our lives. It is weird to think back on our single, childrenless days at the JCP. Fun times. Fun times.

Thanks girls for a great night! I am already looking forward to another girls night which HAS to include another trip to Firehouse!

Lent

I have issues. Lots of them actually. But the one I am letting the world know about is my shopping addiction. I shop when I am sad, mad, happy, excited, bored, stressed....well, really any of my emotions make me want to shop. After this past weekend in SG I have learned that what self control I thought I had is gone. I have NONE.



I was reading Trent's cousin Tiffany's blog post about Ash Wednesday and was reminded of the times I would "participate" in Lent with my friend Kellee. We would pick something to give up for the 40 days. Usually it was food or something we thought we couldn't live without. Well, it is time to participate again, and yes, I am giving up shopping. I will NOT be spending ANY money on clothes, scarves, jewelry, accessories, or shoes. Is this possible? Yes. Can I do it? That remains to be seen. I figured if I put it out there for the blogging world to see, I may be more embarrassed if I fail.



I am a few days late seeing how Ash Wednesday was last week, but I figure it is better late than never. I have already been tested once and passed. Yesterday I was at Target and found the perfect purse for me. For those of you who don't know, I don't do real purses. My current purse is more like a wallet on a string. I found this beauty and was putting it in my cart when I remembered I wasn't going to spend any more money on myself. Ugh! I loved it, but I wasn't going to fail on my first day trying. How pathetic would that be? Maybe it will still be around in 40 days.....and on sale!

Isn't it just screaming my name? I would be moving up in the purse world without fully converting to the "Mary Poppins" purses that girls carry around these days. Why didn't I see this in St. George when I had no problem dropping $13 for a purse???

And LOOK! I would have a place for all my credit cards and "stuff." And isn't the paisley print cute!

So wish me luck! This is going to be hard, but necessary. It is sad to see how much money I waste on unimportant things. Anyone can join me if you want. Hard things are always easier to do if you have a support group!

St George...Again

We escaped to St. George over the weekend. We had a great time as always. The reason for this trip was Uncle Jake. He had a work conference in Vegas, he came a little early so we could all hang out. I feel like you've seen these pictures before, but I still wanted to document our weekend. So here you go!
While we were there we celebrated Jake's birthday with a delicious home cooked meal. Turkey, mashed potato's, gravy, hot rolls, veggies, pink salad, and yummy Oreo dessert! It was all sooo good! I tried to get a pic of the crowded table. My kids take up half the table by themselves!

We had a great weekend. Trent did a little running and Don Pedros. I did a little (okay a lot) of shopping and In & Out. It is sad that we have to split up to enjoy things. But, it's just not that fun to take the furious five to a sit down restaurant or shopping. So we took turns having some time off. Thanks again to Brad & Teri for providing the lodging! It really is a piece of heaven!

(And I am bummed about the dinner pic. I still don't know how to work my camera that well. Sarah or Karina, any suggestions to get everyone (or at least one person!) in focus???)

Pirate Teeth

While we were in St. George the kids did NOT want to brush their teeth. They didn't like the "spicy" toothpaste we had.I tried explaining the issue with plaque and how it eats your teeth. I could tell Andrew wasn't quite grasping what I was telling him. Finally, I told Andrew his teeth were going to turn black and fall off and he would have teeth like a pirate. Brooke had the great idea of showing him a picture. This is the one we found. Pretty gross if you ask me. After we looked at a few more pictures Andrew went straight downstairs and brushed his teeth. He didn't want to end up looking like this guy.
Andrew has actually been talking about his teeth not being like a pirates ever since. Last night during his prayers he was thankful for family, St. George, and that his teeth didn't look like pirate teeth. I think we got our point across...

Babysitting Oliver

We were able to have "little" Oliver up to our house a few days ago. This kid is the chunkiest, cutest guy around. You really do just want to eat him up. Since my kids were sick for a while we hadn't seen much of him lately, so it was nice to get to hang out with him again. My 3 girls LOVE Oliver and cannot get enough of him. We will take him anytime at our house!

What's Been Going On?

There have been a few happenings in our lives over the past few days. Nothing to extraordinary or anything, but we have hit a few milestones!

• Friday night Kim & Luke took half the hoard and had a sleepover. My kids are so lucky to have such a fun Aunt and Uncle. They ate pizza, made brownies, played, and I am sure kept Kim and Luke up way past their bedtime! It was so nice to have "half" a break that night. Thanks Kim and Luke!!!

• Saturday morning I met up with the Jensen girls (& Josh) for a Birthday Breakfast for the newest member of the Jensen's, Shannon. We had a delicious meal, with great conversation. I love my in laws and I am glad Shannon has joined the troops! (for those of you who don't know, Shannon is Jill's friend and has been accepted into the Jensen Fold.)
  

Shannon, Josh, Heidi, Me, Jamie

Jenny, Teri, Jill, Shannon

• I had to work a lot over the weekend. I admitted someone (who was still very young) with brain cancer who ended up passing away the next day. It made me thankful for my health and my families health. I am so blessed!
• Paige and Morgan are finally old enough (and not sick) for nursery!!! We took them for the first time on Sunday. They were so cute walking to nursery with Oakley. They had no problem joining in the fun. I still can't believe they are that old!

It was a chore to get them to stand next to each other and smile. So this is what we got for a pic.

Oakley was so excited to be the big sister and have Paige and Morgan join her in nursery. We actually double the class with our family.

• Heidi, James, and Josh came up to play yesterday afternoon. My boys LOVE when they come play. I have no pictures of our adventurous afternoon, but everyone had fun eating Wendy's, playing with toys, getting presents, and running and chasing each other. Thanks for making the trip guys!
• Last night ended with a dinner with our old neighbors from Kaysville. The Allens are some of our favorite people and we hadn't seen them for a couple years. They came up with their 3 boys and you would have thought our kids had been friends forever. They all joined up and went downstairs and played. It was so nice. Unfortunately, I have no pics of this event either. I guess I wasn't in the picture taking mood yesterday. It was good to catch up and hang out last night and it better not be 2 years before we see them again!
• And last, but definitely not least. Actually, it may be the most exciting news I am reporting (no offense to everyone else that made this list). We went all day yesterday with NO incident!!! I finally get to change my ticker!! WOOT WOOT!!
  

Beautiful Hair

Paige and Morgan are mistaken for boys all the time. Even when they wear pink flowery shirts. This week I have finally done something with their hair in hopes of corrected the wrong assumption of gender. I had never really even tried to do their hair before because when I would look at them it never seemed like they had enough hair to do anything with. Well, I was wrong. Just look at how cute they look in little pig tails!

I am sure they will still be mistaken for boys, even with their hair done. Sometimes I wonder if people are even looking at them when they say how cute my "boys" are...

Lips

Oakley is fascinated with "lips," which is what she calls chapstick. She will go through our drawers trying to find all the Carmex (or any brand really) she can. She applies and reapplies often. She would carry around tubes of Carmex all day if I didn't stop her. I don't know where this obsession came from.

Oakley had 5 tubes of Carmex this time around. She would take each one and try them on her lips. Maybe she was testing them out or something...

I LOVE her big brown eyes. And I love how she can barely hold all the Carmex in her little hands. I think my fave is the top right picture. You have got to enlarge the picture and see just how cute she is!

Bruised...

We played dodge ball last night for mutual. It was a fun version of the sport. If you got hit you would sit down in that spot, then if a ball rolled your way you could grab it and try and get someone else out to get back in. Lets just say that I was a little competitive. I wasn't good...but I was competitive. I have multiple bruises to show for it. The gym floor is hard. I have no clue how I got bruises on my hand. I am still trying to figure it out.

Unfortunately, I was out a lot, but I would be on my knees the whole time trying to get a chance to get back in. I guess my body just can't handle things like this anymore.

Grandma Teri

Grandma Teri came up to play this morning. I LOVE Grandma days! She brought cookies, puzzles, and, most importantly, herself! My kids love to play with their Grandma Teri and I love the "break" it gives me! Thanks Teri!

Our Valentine's Surprise

We were in charge of cleaning the church this weekend. And of course, we were not on top of things. We called the people on our team Saturday morning and told them we would be at the church cleaning in 20 minutes if they wanted to come help, but didn't expect much because of the short notice. To our surprise a lot of them showed up. We were finishing up and our neighbors asked us what we were doing for Valentines. We said nothing. They told us to bring our kids over to their house and they would watch them so we could go out to eat. We told them they had colds and a knack for throwing up, but they wouldn't take no for an answer. So, that night we dropped ALL 5 coughing kids off and headed to Chilis. It was such a good break after such a long, not so fun, week.

Above is all the yummy things we devoured that night. I still feel bloated. Unfortunately, they ran out of their GOOD fries and gave us some crinkled ones that tasted like elementary school's soft, baked fries. Yuck. But they did give us a free Molten Lava for our unhappiness. (We didn't make a big fuss about the fries, but they asked how they were and we told them what we really thought.) We ran a couple of errands to take advantage of our kidless time and then picked the hoard up. We really have the BEST neighbors and it was the best surprise present anyone could give us!

Another GREAT surprise was we didn't have any throw up on V-Day. YAY! I didn't get to change the ticker, because, unfortunately, we had throw up on Sunday. But I am so thankful for one day without our constant friend. It was so nice!

I hope you all had a great Valentines Day and were able to spend it with someone you loved!

Wanna Play Kitchen?

I was upstairs doing whatever it is I do and decided I should go downstairs and check on Paige and Morgan. I heard them playing "Kitchen." I was so excited that they had been playing so well by themselves. I walked into the room and my excitement turned to utter despair. Morgan had thrown up all over the table, chairs, carpet, and even the kitchen cupboards. AND she was playing in it with the utensils and dishes!!! I felt like crying. Really, I did. I picked Morgs up and got her cleaned up. I didn't even want to go back downstairs and deal with the grossness that was awaiting me. I felt like ripping the carpet up and throwing it out. Have you ever tried to get throw up out of old shag carpet? I am so done with throw up.
I know. Gross. I just wanted everyone to get a little glimpse of what we deal with day in and day out.

Here Morgan is serving up a mean batch of regurgitated oatmeal and pears. Any takers?

I did finally start cleaning this mess up and upon finishing I came upstairs to find that Miss Oakley had thrown up all over herself. Ah, I love vomit. So, my friends, my ticker still hasn't gone up one day. I guess Jake was right. We should have the ticker count the number of HOURS without incident, not days.

~~~

On a much happier note it is Brooke's birthday today!!! Brooke is so fun to hang out with, shes beautiful, has multiple personalities (which I mean in a good way), and she loves my kids. And they love her just as much! We love you Brooke!

Happy Birthday!!!

Aiden and Andrew called Brooke today and wished her a happy birthday. Aiden informed Brooke that he was going to come down to St. George and make her a Birthday cake AND that it was going to be a flower cake. Brooke is so lucky to have Aiden to make her birthday so special! ;)

Another Sale at Old Navy!!!

I LOVE Old Navy's kids clothes. LOVE them. I love that their clothes look like miniatures of what grown ups would wear. I sometimes wish they would make the same clothes in my size. Today I got a box in the mail filled with my kid's summer clothes. Yes, it is the baby sale once again at Old Navy. I didn't go as crazy as the last sale, but still found some cute things. This is a picture of some of my faves. I had been looking for simple, plain shoes for the boys and found them for $10 at the sale. YAY! So, all you mom's go check it out. They really do have some CUTE clothes for a great price. Have fun shopping!

No "Sick Days" for Mom...

I wanted to call in sick this morning. I woke up freezing, my head hurt, my body ached, and I had some feelings of uneasiness in my belly. I heard Paige and Morgan talking to each other, but I continued to lay in my bed hoping all my kids would magically go back to sleep. No such luck. So, today will be a day full of TV shows and movies. Wait. Who am I kidding? That is what everyday is like in our house. The difference is I won't feel guilty about it today...

Suggestions Appreciated

Over the weekend Trent decided to tear down another wall. This one was the wall that separated our playroom and a hallway. It really is much nicer and much bigger. The kids have actually played down there a lot more with the wall being gone. I think they are able to maneuver their four wheelers and riding toys better with the extra space.

So, this is where I need help. Now that it is open and semi connected with the rest of the basement I need help on colors. Originally, I was going to do some type of burnt orange and a dusky blue/gray. But now that it isn't enclosed in a room I am hesitant to do such bold, drastic colors. I am thinking a light charcoal color for the main walls and then one accent wall with a more "interesting" color. We are going to build a climbing wall with the gray holdings you see above. I was thinking that wall could be the accent wall. And the rest of the decor would be metal industrial looking shelves and such. Trent and I are pretty conservative when it comes to decorating and colors, but it is a playroom, so I am trying to branch out. Let me know what you think and if you have any ideas for cute colors for the walls and decor. I am VERY open to suggestions.