End of School!

"W" had a great year of Kindergarten! On their last day the whole school participates in the Dance Festival. Each grade or class does it's own dance to perform for everyone. She is in that group somewhere!

 Here is a picture of her with her teacher, Mrs. Ferrin, who we LOVE and her assistant Mrs. White.

 And here's a pic of Mrs. and Mr. Ferrin. Mr. Ferrin did this extra class with "W" on Mondays where they got to learn and discover new things with him. He is actually our Stake President as well, such a busy man, and SO wonderful. He loves the kids and they love him too, it was such a fun year! Can't wait for "E" to have Mrs. Ferrin next year!

Before and After Corner Shelf

So, I did a little project a couple of weeks ago and I am now finally posting it since I took my final picture. My mom gave me this shelf she had because we really needed something in our living room, specifically to hold our 5 gallon fish tank that has been on our dining room TABLE! Anyways, when I got it, it had a very lovely paint job, I must say, from the 90's I am sure, and it was hiding anyways, so it didn't really matter, but here it is:

I decided to go with spray paint and was wanting to go for kind of a mahogany look, which wasn't completely possible with spray paint options, but I did like the end result anyhow. I finished it off with a shiny coat to give it a fancier look, so here is the end result:

Not too bad, right? Now, to figure out what to do with my lovely wood paneled wall...? Oh, and we just got these couches from a neighbor, they aren't too bad, especially considering they were free, and all we had in here before was a love seat, and a rocking chair pretty much. Anyways, it is finally coming together after only a year! Ha, maybe in 10 we will finally get it all in order?

Happy Birthday to Me!

So, as is usual being a mom, I didn't expect much but a quiet time at home with the family, and maybe my mom, for my birthday. I also woke up on my birthday with pretty much no voice, thanks to my cold, so sorry to anyone I didn't answer the phone for. :) I knew that Will was making me something with a little help from the kids, but that was it.

SURPRISE! Will, had actually planned something for us without me knowing! I never expect it really because it always requires planning ahead, which can be hard for both of us. ;-) Anyways, he said I couldn't have my present until a little later, so we just hung out a little when he got home from work, (which he managed to get off early, which is also VERY rare) So then the doorbell rang and my mom was here! (Now, I kind of DID know she was coming, but I just thought it was so she could be here to hang out with us and eat and maybe we'd go out all together or something?) So, I opened my present which is what he had been working on:

He bought the box at Michaels, and added some beautiful artwork to it. He did the wood burning, which is impressive for his first time, I must say, and then the inside is just awesome too. He found a way (via TouTube :)) to transfer a picture onto the wood, It looks really cool, and then each of the kids put their hand prints in the bottom.

Inside he also go me this:

And also inside was 2 tickets to see Oz: The Great and Powerful at 6:30 and an envelope of 3 restaurant choices. I guess we were going out together! I'd say he hit a home run with this one. Thanks Hun! It was a fun night for sure. And thanks mom for watching the kids!

Earlier in the day I DID still make myself a cheesecake for dessert, so I did know we would be having that. :) I found the recipe on Allrecipes, of course HERE. Read the comments for extra tips, I didn't do it exactly as it said, added a water bath and some sugar to the crust etc., but it was great! I also may have cooked it a bit too long, but it was still good!

So I'd say it was a great birthday, and I have a wonderful husband and family! Thanks!

Play Doh Fun

So the girls have been wanting to play with play doh all week, and I finally got it out today. Of course half of it was dried up and crumbly, so we decided to make some! After borrowing some cream of tartar from my awesome neighbor (which is always in play doh recipes, and is why I've never made it before) we were able to make it!  I did 5 small batches in a matter of 20 min, so easy, with this recipe HERE, which I halved for each batch. It was perfect! They played with it for quite a while, and it should last a good while. Here's some pics!

Healthier Eating

Something that has been on our minds lately is what kinds of things we, and our kids especially, should be eating. It seems like everywhere we go, there is processed this and packaged that and corn syrup and sugar galore. We've just been eating things, mostly snacks, that are fast and easy, which translates into 'unhealthy and addicting'. Now I know we haven't been incredibly bad eating everything the store shelves have to offer, but I have felt like all our kids will eat is processed food and snacks.

One thing I've been thinking of that contributes to this has been my way of thinking, in how I slowly graduate my babies from 'baby food' to 'real food'. What was my definition of 'real food' for my first child? Birthday cake with tons of yummy frosting and ice cream on her 1st birthday, shortly followed by easily eaten candies, then cookies and granola bars, followed by fruit snacks, goldfish, hotdogs and chicken nuggets. It's totally normal for little kids to be exposed to this food, and we readily have it available for them to have a a moment's notice.  NOW, finally I'm seeing things in a different way. I want my baby now, to slowly graduate from soft pureed veggies and fruits to eating fresh, raw versions of these things, along with healthier versions of other things like dried fruit, homemade granola bars and even homemade cookies are better than from the store. With the other kids I am not buying very many snack foods anymore, almost everything is so sugary and has a definite addictive property. Everyone has felt that overpowering urge to eat just one more, it's just SO good, right? Of course, and that can be fine every once in a while, but I want my kids' main diet to consist of things that I have control over and lots of fruits and veggies. 

So this is what I've been trying to do lately. First, I make bread one to two times a week. I mostly do this because it is more cost effective, but I also know it is healthy, usually being half whole wheat flour. 

We buy craisins instead of fruit snacks, and I make homemade granola bars when they are wanted instead of buying store bought. I found a great recipe on allrecipes.com HERE. I change it up a bit by replacing the vegetable oil with applesauce and usually just omit the cinnamon and do chocolate chips or something instead of raisins, since my kids don't like raisins cooked in things. We can also add almonds or anything else we like. Anyways, the kids love them, so that's all I need to know!

I also stumbled upon a recipe for graham crackers. We actually usually do buy them, but we were out and I figured who knows what is in those as well, so might as well try! I didn't have graham flour, but in finding out it was a type of wheat flour I made them with half white flour and half wheat and they are good! Once again the kids love them just as much! Here's a pic of those, with cinnamon and sugar on top of course, but even without, they like them.

One more thing we are trying to do every day is a 'smoothy' of raw fruits and veggies. We have a NutriBullet, which purees the food very smoothly. The kids will drink these as well, even when they know there is spinach in there somewhere and even if it's green. ;-)

 I even make one for 'L' every day and mix infant cereal into it to thicken it up for spoon feeding. 

He loves it! Yum, yum!

So, I know we are still far from perfect and won't become fanatics about it completely, but we want our kids to love food and love being healthy. Oh and one more thing to help with our vegetable consumption is our GARDEN! We can't wait to have all of our home grown, organic, fresh fruits and veggies. Hopefully we will hardly have to buy any produce this year and will be able to preserve our excess for winter/food storage. Also, knowing how to make all of these things and having a garden helps me to feel so much more secure in the possibility of a disaster or something happening where I can't make it to the store for a long time. As long as we keep stocked with baking supplies we will be good to go. :-)

Also wanted to add that I know this probably isn't anything eye opening or new to most, I think all of us on some level are trying to do this. But at the same time, I am still seeing moms everywhere with packaged this and processed that, stuffed into their diaper bags, and in their kids' mouths. So let's GET HEALTHY!

MOAB Spring Break 2013

Ok, so it was 2 weeks ago now, but I am finally writing about our adventure in Moab. We decided awhile ago that we would use "W"'s first Spring Break as an excuse to go somewhere as a family.  We couldn't afford to go anywhere too far or luxurious, so we opted for a 3 hour drive and camping.

All in all it was a pretty fun trip. Camping actually wasn't as bad as I thought it would be. Nights were surprisingly quiet, even the 9 month old, and I only remember one bathroom trip in the middle of the night. Night number 3 was probably the worst for the baby, so we were glad to be packing up that next morning. Luckily, on our second night we snagged an awesome campsite with neighbors barely within view.

It was a bit chilly in the mornings which made it hard to get up and going, and the baby was totally not in the mood to be set down AT ALL in the morning, so I couldn't really get much done with one hand, but we finally got out of camp after 10:30 each morning. I'm not going to give an extremely detailed account of where we went each day, I probably couldn't remember anyways, and I can never remember the names of anything either. If you want the detailed version though, and have a bit of reading time, go ahead and head over HERE to my husband's new blog. :)  He did a great job explaining our travels. (But really, it is quite long, it seriously must have taken him forever to write it.) Ha, anyways....

So, some places of interest we did go were:

Millcreek Dinosaur Trail

Dead Horse Point

Canyonlands

Arches
-Delicate Arch viewpoint
-Windows
-Balanced Rock
-Double Arch

Copper Ridge Dinosaur Track Site

"W"'s foot next to a dinosaur track. See the three toes?

And of course there is probably more I am missing.

So, I will put up a few cute pics here now, but for a full view of our pictures you can go HERE, where my husband has posted those on Google+


Hiking up! To see delicate arch from a viewpoint.

Best sisters hiking back down

This was under double arch. He was so happy I turned my phone to get the pic. I like this one because the rest of the fam is in the background. :)

I don't like me in this one, but I love "L" boy's face!

She is looking at a lizard down on the tree trunk at our campsite.

The girls made these pretend fire rings all by themselves. They were very proud of themselves.

The two older girls also earned their Junior Ranger Badges from both Canyonlands and Arches. There are pics of those at the google+ link. We had a great time and it only took a week or so to recover! ;-) That's all for now!

Easter

So I'm a little behind, but we will get caught up now. Easter was great! The girls got their big surprise for Easter the day before so they could actually enjoy it. Since none of them have spring/early summer birthdays we figured bikes would be a good Easter thing. They all got helmets and then "W" got a new (to her) bike, "E" got the old bike with training wheels put back on and new streamers and then "R"got the tricycle. They were excited! On Easter morning they got matching skirts. Grandma and Grandpa came over for dinner as well, so it was a great day! Oh, we also dyed eggs on Saturday too!

By any other name.....WORK!

It has almost been 1 year since we bought or house! That means last year we didn't have to go through the pain staking work of pruning all of the ROSES! So, our last week or so has been spent outside (which I'm not complaining about), but also has been spent pruning roses, and we are only like half way done with them. We will definitely be saying goodbye to some of them, and probably to more next year. I do like having some, but holy cow there are more than 30 of them out there. Here is a pic of my big helpers! If they are willing, lets use 'em, right? ;)

Door decor

We love decorating for holidays, but don't really have a budget for it and I don't really plan ahead. This was my split second idea for the door and I really like it! I can change it out with the seasons easily too. I just taped everything on the back.
The girls helped me out with the rest of the door. ;)

L boy

This boy is 8 months old, I just can't believe it! Isn't he the most handsome thing!?