Let's pretend...

Let's pretend it's not almost January and that i'm not a bad mom. let's pretend i didn't miss blogging my daughters birthday.
Let's pretend it's December 15th....

Happy Birthday Lucy! Wow, are you seriously 2 years old? Let's recap shall we...

i can't even stand how cute this pic is. it will be our little secret that it wasn't quite taken on her actual blessing day since somehow i forgot to take a picture of just her that day. seriously retarded. me, not her.

it's a cute pic nontheless.

about 6 months old...sweetness.

this girl is a serious climber. it's so fun...or not.

this girl is the silliest smiler. she really gets into it! she must get the whole eye squinting thing from me, she just doesn't know that i can't help it. i have squinty eyes OK.

this girl may look like an angel, but i will tell you what...she is a very mischeivious one. sheesh.

We had a great birthday party complete with Elmo cake pops.

unfortunatly....i may have stuck 2 candles out of an elmo head which was a little funny, but what else was i supposed to do?...and a bit of wax may have fallen on her hand after she blew it out...

and then she may have looked like this...

but then she took a bite and life was better.

love you Goose!

happy pretend 2nd birthday!

HO-HO...NOOOOO!

Oh, Santa.

Hannah forgot to tell you she wants a bike. Her mind went blank and she just rattled off something. I told her you would just know.

Lincoln thinks he wants a Wii...but I told him he really wants a bike also.

and Lucy...she just wants off your lap.

pause my playlist at the bottom of the this page ......sit back and enjoy!

Send your own ElfYourself eCards

Do I hear a Niner?

Yes, yes it is the cutest picture ever. 9 short/long years ago today this pictures was taken. It is my very favorite because I just love the look on Peder's face. He just looks so giddy about me. I love it. Seriously.
Our wedding anniversary is a weird time for me. It is very close to the anniversary of the whole "tumor in Pete's inner ear" thing. So making me count years of marriage makes me count years of illness and let's just say that the ratio is a bit depressing. But...who's life ever turns out the way you planned it would right? My eyes have been opened recently to how we all go through and feel the same crap (disappointment, feeling alone, frustration, blah blah blah) just through different circumstances. And even though this is so cliche- in the end, I wouldn't trade someone else's crap for our crap. yes i just said crap like 4 times.
So enjoy your crap people, because it's yours. And no one wants to handle someone else's crap.

Happy Anniversary love.

Cleopatra, Ninja, Wonder Woman, and....Oh my!

I love Halloween!

We had a beautiful Cleopatra with black hair and all. This costume was chosen for the simple fact that she got to wear makeup with it. oh dear.

Ninja boy! This costume was chosen for the swords, cuz that's what boys do.

Wonder Woman. This costume was chosen because it was cute and free. thx sarah!

Sister Wife. Oh yes i did. This costume was chosen because I saw their hair and thought to myself "i can totally do that with my hair". It was complete with socks and tennis shoes and all. I was kinda surprised at how good/bad it all turned out. Peder's reaction was the best. He was totally shocked at how much i looked like those women. Which, may I take this moment to say...they are very nice women. A bit mislead, but

very good people. I felt kinda bad dressing up like them, but i guess i got over it. I added a little black to one of my teeth just to create a little gap ya know. and the uni-brow...priceless.

Happy Halloween!

the only draw back from black hair spray.....it was so funny!

high 5!

Lincoln boy turned 5 today! He was sooo very excited since he has to wait 2 whole weeks between Hannah's birthday and his. I think they are the longest 2 weeks of his whole year. This morning, he went around yelling "the birthday boy is going to the bathroom....the birthday boy is getting dressed....!"

Somewhere he got the idea that when it is your birthday, you get WHATEVER you want. I don't know where he got that idea, certainly not from me. I had to keep reminding him that though your birthday is special and we want to have a fun day, it doesn't exactly mean you can do anything you want. We did have a great time going to Chick-fil-a with Leah, Eden and Grace, playing and getting ice cream cones. Then on to Chuckie E. Cheeses with some friends and cupcakes. Unfortunately, I'm a retard and forgot my camera. It was a pretty short trip though because 5 yr. old boys spend their tokens way faster than the 7 yr. old girls did.
I love you tons boy! Happy Birthday!

say what?

This morning Lincoln was apparently writing some songs on the piano because he yelled from the other room "did you hear that song mom? it's called "Satan has chickenpox". Later he told me it was because Satan is bad, so he got the chicken pox. Luckily there is a vaccine for that now a days, otherwise he might think he was a really bad little boy when started getting spots all over! funny kid.

Training

22 month olds were never meant to be taken to get pictures with her brother and sister. Never. The fact that I even hoped that is was possible to get one great picture of all 3 of them shows you how delusional I was today. 4 months ago she was super cute and easy. I had to pick between 7-8 really great ones! Today, I had to ask the photographer (who had already spent a ton of time with us) to take just a few more pleasssse, so i could hopefully get one where you could at least see 1/2 of her face. That Lucy girl was soooo not havin' it. We finally set up Hannah and Lincoln and told them to be statues and I would air plane Lucy around and drop her down in the middle of them and the girl would get off one shot. It was insane. Seriously. I was sweating. And to boot...the girl was in TRAINING! That was actually the whole reason we went, because they had a smokin' deal so their people in training could get experience. Well, happy training lady!
So an hour and 45 minutes later, I staggered out with my 3 kids and my purchase of $19 of pictures and a savings of $75. I could just imagine them saying to them selves "all that for $19? I was kinda asking myself the same thing.

playing catch up.

besides feeling like dying and then pulling/displacing a rib with my coughing...this is what we have been up to....

Lincoln's been playing soccer, which he LOVES! and it is so cute to see him so excited about it.

we like to dress up and act things out for family home evening. David and Goliath, Shadrach, Meshack, and Abednigo (however you spell those dudes), the 10 lepers, and the Good Samaritan are among our favs. (i highly recommend this activity for f.h.e.! my kids ask every week if they get to dress up and act something out. they love it and it keeps them involved and they really learn the stories by acting them out). this is one of our latest. we talked about being missionaries and the kids all dressed up and had name tags on and practiced tracting. they thought it was fabulous!

Lucy loves yogurt apparently. a lot.

the trauma/joy of loosing teeth...

i don't even remember what this is. all i know is i walked away for 2 minutes and this is what happened.

yes this was a new bag of bread.

and obviously she wasn't finished with her bath even though i had just dried her off and put on a new diaper.

she really gets into her "peek-a-boo" playing!

silly kids.

how did this happen?

Not sure how this happend, but I have a 7 year old! Without front teeth.

Hannah turned 7 this past week much to her enjoyment. She said that it was the greatest birthday ever and the day just kept getting better and better. I mentioned to Peder that instead of birthdays getting better as we get older, they seem to be less and less exciting until you get really old (ya know like 60...cough cough...mom) and then they are only amazing because you are so very old and no one can believe you are still alive. Actually, the "still alive" part comes a few years later, but you get the point.

Anyway, we went kinda low key this year with a trip to Chuckie E. Cheese's with 2 girlfriends from school. They had a blast. Actually, we may have been cheapsters by having a "picnic" in the back of the van with a 5 dollar pizza and root beer, instead of ordering one inside. Isn't it amazing what you can get away with when they are little? I told Peder if she were 12, she would have looked at us like we were crazy and rolled her eyes and walked away when we said (excitedly) "we're going to have a pizza picnic in the car!". At 7 years old she thought it was the greatest ever and said she had always wanted to have a picnic in the car. Aaahhh, if only life were always so easy to deal with.


I wish I had an amazing cake to show you for her birthday, but thankfully she just wanted a heart cake and this is what you get after 2 1/2 weeks of the "the cough of death". We were laughing because the candles started melting the chocolate hearts on top as we sang Happy Birthday. We sped up our song and giggled through it.


Love you Hannah banana! Only one more year till I feel really really old with an 8 year old gettting baptized! ugh.

Dear Lucy,

please stop pooping in the bath. Its gross. And I'm soo over the whole sanitizing everything-thing. Also, please stop putting your hand down your dirty diaper to prove to me that you need it changed. I totally believe you when you come and say "poo poo". I don't need the visual. Thanks a ton. love you lots, mom

Note to self...

Do Not....spend your afternoon cutting and sorting and getting your coupons ready...drive half way across town...shop with 2 of your children, matching up all your coupons with the right thing, in the exact way the store will accept them...start checking out...reach for your purse....tell the checker lady to stop! ....because you can't find your wallet...and you hope and pray that you left it in your car, or at home, or anywhere except with someone else....take your 2 kids back to the car, minus the groceries...check the car...no wallet....drive back across town....back to your house....to thankfully find your wallet on the counter...then have just enough time to drive back almost to the exact place you were to pick up your daughter from ballet...and just give up on the whole buying food thing today. Yeah, don't do that, cause really it's just a waste of time...don't ya think?

Backlog Utah...ya know, for posterity

So I really wanted to get out of the heat and take a little summer vacation, and my dearest friend Ange said "come on over"! So we did. Well the kids and I did, Pete had to stay home and finance the operation. Anyway, thanks to my other dear friend Lisa, and a portable DVD player, we were able to make the long trip up to Utah. Lucy may have gotten whip lash from throwing a fit and trying to get out of her car seat for the last 45 minutes of the trip but whatever.

Let me just say, that Ange is the hostess with the mostest. She had babysitters all lined up so we could get massages, facials, and Olive Garden. She had tickets for us all to go to the Temple Dedication, she let me bake with her everyday in her bakery, and totally ruin my diet (that i've never quite got back on) on her delicious cupcakes and the such as, and she even threw a huge catered going away party in her back yard on our last night there. Ok maybe that was for her neighbors birthday but still, we were there and it was super fun.

We went to the Dinosaur Museum one day. Hannah was a little scared that they were going to come back to life when she turned her back...

but she got used to it. They had a Supersaurous, which was amazing. Can you imagine seeing that thing walking around? crazy.

We also did some "digging for dinosaurs"

and saw a big shark...???

played in the "crick"....

toured the Oquirrh Mountain Temple...(Peder thinks we look like a "lovely lesbian couple" in this picture...rude. yeah he's getting struck down. ya know, cause we are at the temple and all. if we were anywhere else it would just be kinda funny...unless you really are a lovely lesbian couple....then it's just kinda normal.)

toured the new Conference Center...which my kids surprisingly were completely captivated by...

and finally after 9 long years....got together with my old EFY roommate Sharon. She is the bestest and it was so great to see her and her cute kids. Her daughter is named Miranda...after me I'm sure....or it's like a family name or something. whatever. Now it's her turn to come down to the AZ and see us!!!!

We had a great time! Thanks Ange and Craig for letting 3 crazy kids take over your house for a week. Hopefully that superglue holds your beautiful vase together for a really long time. Sorry 'bout that. See you next year!????

Happiness ='s terrible mom

First day of school! First day of school! that was to be sung like in the movie Finding Nemo of course.

My little Hannah was just as excited as Nemo was in the movie too. She couldn't go to sleep the night before because she was so excited/nervous. It was really cute. Finally I told her to count to 100 really slow and apparently that did the trick. But of course she woke up at the crack of dawn...ready to go. I'm sure this set the stage for her complete breakdown the next evening. This is her first year going to full day school, so it will take a bit to get used to it.

Lincoln also started preschool also . I guess on the first day of school you do the opposite of what you normally do because he actually slept in ...which let me tell you is a miracle.

I don't really know who taught my children to pose this way...but this is what they came up with when I said "say cheese"!

I'm not gonna lie...I was completely and totally ready to not hear my children argue with each other all day long. Whoever thought of having all the kids go to school together -out of their homes- was a freakin' genius. I'm sure in some way that makes me a terrible mom, but.....whatever. Of course I did have some craziness inside having Hannah gone for so long...but I'm pretty much over it now. See...enjoying a little peace and quite ='s terrible mom. Going crazy because your kids are arguing all day and bored out of their minds, and it's 115 degrees outside ='s terrible mom. I just can't win.

Willy Wonka was not a Mormon

Here's how I know. So Pete and I had the lovely pleasure of going with Doug Donaldson through the Temple for his first time. Woo hoo! Pete even got to be his escort which was very cool.

I had taken the kids to the zoo early that morning to beat the heat...like rip them out of their beds early, ya know so it would only be 105 instead of 115. Anyway, it had been a busy, tiring day, so I grabbed a few Everlasting Gobstoppers -that I had left over from girls camp- to keep my mouth busy so my eyelids would stay open. Ya know how that goes. So things were going just fine until my second gobstopper. I went to swallow the chewed up pieces and holy cow, a piece of that gobstopper got stopped in my gob. OK, that was retarded, but it really did get stuck in my throat -really bad. So of course I start coughing. Loudly. I tried to swallow it a few times but every time I did, it made this hurty, soury taste in my throat and I felt like I was going to throw up. I even started the pre barfing sweat and continued to cough the kind of cough that makes your ribs hurt and your eyes water. And of course lovely people start asking if I'm ok and offering me cough drops and the such as. Apparently almost everyone brings cough drops to the Temple because 4 people offered me one on my short way out to the hall to get a drink. I bet cough drops don't make you want to vomit in the temple. I of course declined them since it wasn't really a coughing issue...it was an everlasting gobstopper issue. So embarrassing. And let me just tell you that Willy named those little guys accurately. The water made it better but not completely. They really are everlasting. At least after holding up the session a bit, I was able to finish it without vomiting so that was good.
So a word to the wise....stick with the tic tacs, altoids, breath savers, butter mints, lifesavers... or whatever. Leave the Everlasting Gobstoppers for another time!

Dear...

Dear 15 pounds,
Yes I see that you are back...again. This is the third time in the last year that i have gotten rid of you only to have you return way too quickly. What part of "go away" don't you understand? I know the term "loosing" you might be sending you the wrong message. So let me be clear...I don't ever want to "find" you again. ever.
You must have noticed that it takes quite a bit of hard work, over a way too long period of time to rid myself of you. Why do you feel the need to torment me? Do you like to watch me suffer? Do you like to see me look at you in the mirror and be sad? Does it make you feel powerful? huh? huh? Seriously. You know I'm only getting older. My metabolism's only getting slower. So do me a favor would ya? Go find someone else to hang out with...like the girls on that overweight Bachelor show, I don't think they would mind at all. They might even appreciate it. After all...I believe the show is called "More to Love". See, it would be like doing them a favor. And I would be so grateful. Thank you, thank you very much,
randi

camp

so i have the luxury of going to girls camp this week and getting out of the heat! yeah! i also got to make up the camp skit. here it is in all it's glory. my debut on YouTube! I'm pretty much a retard...as usual. and one more thing...please excuse the annoying gum chewing. i must have been nervous or something and decided to chew my gum like a cow! my dad will be so embarrassed! sorry dad. i know you spent your whole life teaching me not to chew my gum like a cow, and now that I'm famous on YouTube (haha!) it's there for all the world to see. what a shame. well, enjoy anyway i guess!

a little late...as usual

So we had a fabulous 4Th of July this year. Yeah yeah I know it was like 3 weeks ago or something but that's just how I roll sometimes. Better late than never right!
here are a few of my favorite moments!

gotta love the chance to get a family picture...finally!


Hannah really wanted to take a picture...so we posed for her...what a man! p.s. this is the exact place we got engaged 9 years ago on july the 1st!!! wowza!

silly Hannah!

cousins!

this is a special tree on my grandpas farm that we have taken this same picture for the last 30 years or so. gotta keep up the tradition...

we had great seats for the fireworks as usual...thanks to the "seat savers" extraordinaire a.k.a. mom and dad.

we had some little ones with us, and they all dealt with the noise and lights a little differently...


and no we did not make her do this...so cute.

one of the best highlights was the "freedom pinyata". not really, i just made that up. but we did have a pinyata and it was so cute. unfortunately i can't get the video to load. i'll try again later.

Happy 4TH of July!...a while ago...