A Sunny Day in Washington

This week we had a sunny day. It rains a lot here so when the sun shines you quickly change your plans and head outside to bask in the sunshine. Nathan was playing happily with his cars on this particular day but was happy to put on his coat and go outside with me and Megan.
My first order of business was hanging hearts on our front yard tree. One of my girls gave me the idea (since we hang plastic Easter eggs for Easter) and so I bought some at Micheals craft store. I hung the hearts as high up as I could reach which was only the bottom branches. I think they look pretty cute. They are made out of a sparkly waterproof paper and are red on one side and pink on the other.
While I was hanging the hearts Megan found a ladybug. Nathan was very interested so Megan let him have a turn holding it.

I was afraid he would squish it but he was very gentle.

Then while I cleared away some leaves from under bushes I found a second ladybug.

Megan thought it was awesome to have two ladybugs on her. Who knew ladybugs were out in January?

Today I am thankful that

*Emily made cookies for us all to eat (snickerdoodles from a box - very tasty). I guess my interest in cookie making has passed on to my children.

*Scott woke up early on Saturday and put together a side table I had purchased. It was a neat surprise to see it made when I woke up.

*Nathan has now stopped talking about backhoe tractors, unfortunately he talks about tow trucks constantly now.

A little boy's wish comes true

A few weeks ago Nathan started asking for a backhoe tractor and a John Deere baseball cap. He kept making the request day after day. Here is a video of his request.

So his nice Daddy took him to a tractor store where he had a great time sitting on some backhoe loader tractors.

Can you spot him behind the steering wheel of this red tractor?

Well he was satisfied for about a day and then the request started again. So Daddy came to the rescue again by ordering these two special gifts. He looks pretty excited don't you think?

The hat says I love John Deere. Now he has a "Daddy" backhoe loader and a "baby" one.

His final request was to go to Chuck E. Cheeses and ride on the Bob the Builder tractor. So that's what we did. It was all fun until Chuck E. Cheese in costume walked by. Nathan was freeked out. I guess we won't have him asking to go to Chuck E. Cheeses again.
If you are thinking that this boy is spoiled you are absolutely right.

Today I am thankful that:

*we made it through a week with a lot of sick people at our house

*it didn't rain today and I could take my kids to the park and on a walk through our neighborhood picking up litter

*the kids like watching TV with each other and their dad (it gives me a break)

Valentine Crafters

Last year I saw the cutest Valentine cookies made out of felt on Pamela Susan's blog http://pamelasusan.typepad.com/pamela_susanup_close_pers/2009/01/project-one-felt-valentine-cookies.html. I had a 1 year old at the time and sewing seemed like a bad idea so I filed away the idea for this year. Over the past 4 days I have made these 6 cookies. Each takes about an hour of time but really is not that difficult. I bought the felt (which is only 29cents a sheet) and the seed beads. I had the embroidery thread from past never finished cross stitching projects and my mom gave me the stuffing for the cookies. I can't decide which is my favorite cookie. My family wishes they were real so they could eat them.
Melissa made some Valentine skateboarding pigs. They were from a foam craft kit but she added her own personal touch. Notice the pig on the right. She made 8 pigs and has slowly been giving them away to friends.

Scott's sister Laura and her husband were in town last week and came to our house for dinner. Melissa gave her a pig to take home to her kids.
Both Megan and Melissa have been working feverishly on Valentine paper crafts as well as evidenced by our very decorated kitchen wall. Here Megan is posing by her Valentine smiley face which is attached to the wall by at least 20 pieces of tape. Nice! I guess we all crafters at this house.

Scott hasn't made any Valentine crafts but he did recently finish a project that he started 4 years ago. When we moved into our house the walls were white and these were the living room curtains. A bit over the top for us.
So Scott romoved the top valence which was attached to the ceiling with 100 nails. Yikes! Then he took down the sheers and put up wooden blinds. We intended to change out the curtains too but couldn't find any curtains we liked to replace them.

The curtains remained for 4 years. They made good tents and hiding spots for hike and seek. But when we closed them they looked like this.
Here is a close up on the pottery fabic. Not our favorite.
But I finally found some new curtains and just last week Scott took down the old ones and hung up the new. I like them alot.

Today I am thankful that

*I have a new Beehive Class Presidency, after being without one for over a month.

*we have crafts to do inside when the weather outside is rainy everyday.

*Scott lets me put tons of decorations up all over the house.

Creative Snow Play

Over Christmas break we got snow. The kids were so excited and quickly headed out to play in it. I love how in this picture all the kids are playing happily. With 5 kids there is usually always 1 or more kids who is unhappy.
Since we made so many snowman when it snowed on Thanksgiving the girls tried to come up with other fun things to build with the snow. Holly started with this igloo like creation which she made out of a giant snowball.
Then she decided to turn it into an Eiffel Tower. Cool!

The next day Megan went out to play in the snow and dug a tunnel through the Eiffel Tower. She and Nathan had a fun time squeezing through it.

Then creative Scott thought of another fun thing to do in the snow. He and Holly got out a tarp and made a small ice skating rink. They built the snow up around the tarp and then filled the tarp with water. Yes, they did this in the dark.

The next day it was frozen and the kids all enjoyed sliding across it. Scott also froze water in all our buckets which we could then slide along the ice.

All the kids had a blast but got wet because the ice wasn't frozen all the way through and it cracked.

Today I am thankful that:

*Nathan is feeling better--I hate to see my kids sick

*Emily is learning to cook. She made brownies with cookie dough in them on Saturday. Yum!

*Melissa is so creative. She is always showing me the "interesting" things she has made.

Welcome 2011!

We stared out New Years eve with an Elders Quorum party at our church. The highlight was the balloons--all 420 of them. We were counting down with the east coast to the new year and would release the balloons at 9:00.

While we waited from 7pm-9pm we ate yummy snacks and treats and the bigger kids learned some dances from our wards' resident dance teacher and ran around with their friends. The little girls thought the dance music was too loud so they hung out in the foyer at the church. Jumping off the volleyball pole which had been taken out of the cultural hall was lots of fun.

Yes, it was tricky to get their picture mid jump.

Unfortunately we lost the internet feed that let us watch the countdown in NY. Then we came up with an even better idea. Watch a past years countdown and watch it now. So at 8:45 we counted down to the year 2009! Then we let the balloons fall.

Once the balloons fell we were supposed to step on them to pop them. Wow, that was loud.

At about 8:55pm a few families came to the church to be there for the 9:00 celebration only to find out that it had already happened and all the balloons were popped. Oops.

Upon arriving home we started work on our family tradition of putting together a puzzle. Scott and I started this our first year married. Since we have so many helpers now we decided to make 2 puzzles. It was Me and Emily doing the Salt Lake City puzzle against Scott and Holly doing the Provo puzzle.

The Salt Lake puzzle was 500 pieces and the Provo one was 550 pieces and Salt lake won by a landslide I must say! Maybe the Provo puzzle was harder or those extra 50 pieces made it that much harder or maybe I am just the better puzzle builder. :) Happy New Year!

Today I am thankful that:

*the kids are back at school

*my mom tended my little kids

*I got to take a walk, run errands, and hang out at home alone