Christopher Creek

We went on our first camping adventure of 2012. We went to Christopher Creek, which was about 2 1/2 hours away. Just far enough to be out of cell phone range for 2 blissfully quiet days. (Well phone quiet I mean, it's never QUIET around here.)

While Little Man and Hubbie got the fishing out of their system, Squirt, Ladybug & I went on an awesome adventure. If you ask Squirt we explored the WHOLE MOUNTAIN and were gone all day.  Really, we never went out of site of the tent and were gone about 30 minutes!

 Brrr... the water was FREEZING.

 There was lots of Hammock time. Or fighting, depending on what you call it at your house!  I love this pic cause they're totally holding hands!   

And maybe we'll have Dad tie the hammock next time... Sorry about that kids:-)

 The girls watching the boys fish.

 He lasted like 30 seconds before he was bored out of his mind.

 This one however, was so patient, he could have fished ALL DAY!

 The 2 fish they kept, Squirt swears he caught that one with his bare hands??  (He's such a liar!)

 Does life get any better than a nap in a hammock?

 S'mores.  And OH.MY.GOODNESS.  A 2 year old and a camp fire is enough to cause serious heart problems. She just WOULDN'T.SIT.STILL.  She's just SO happy though. Love these 3!

We had a good time and we'll be adding Christopher Creek to our list of favorites. Hopefully we'll be back soon.   Hubbie just got called to be Scout Master in our ward so we'll have lots of adventures this summer I'm sure!

School Pics

Our school takes pictures in the Fall (your traditional year-book style pic) and in the Spring (a more fun one). For the spring pics they send home a proof to entice you to buy lots of your cute cute kid!

I absolutely love Squirts:

Little Mans however, is a cross between a mug-shot and total attitude. I can tell by his smile on the left that the photographer must have been begging him to smile and he's humoring her. The one on the right says "get me out of here... NOW"

I still refuse to pay their prices, but thought I'd share how cute these 2 are:)

Squirt turns 6!!

I can't believe that my baby boy turned 6, it's killing me how fast he's growing up.  We had his first "friend party" and oh.my.goodness... he had so much fun!!!!

Grandma & Grandpa sent him birthday money and he bought WRESTLERS.  He doesn't have a shirt on cause "wrestlers don't wear shirts mom, geez!"

His birthday fell on a Saturday and that was a perfect day for a party!  

We had a Super Hero Training Party!  

We started out by everyone decoration Super Hero Capes & Masks   (Blogger is being a little retarded here so the pics are out of order)   Then we had an obstacle course. They had to run the length of the yard, run thru some tunnels, weave thru cones, jump thru hoops, punch/kick the balloons and then run back to the start. We also did some super villain shooting! (with silly string). We had lunch, and opened presents and just had a blast.

CTR Hero

Squirt got chosen to do the "CTR Hero" in primary. Basically he brought home a blank paper doll and he got to decorate it how he wanted. Naturally he chose a super hero theme, complete with green briefs and blue tights!  On the back he got to write all the things he did to "Choose the Right" that week, which sadly, that week included "only throwing up on the carpet twice:("

Easter... better late than never!

 Easter morning dawned bright and early at our house. 5AM!  The little stinkers even beat the Easter Bunny up, so I made them stay in their rooms until at least 6 and then the Easter Bunny had to sneak out her bedroom window to hide eggs in the dark.  Yikes, she was nearly busted! 

Ladybug was not really very entertained by any of this. SHE didn't want to get up even at 6am... even for candy.  I kept showing her eggs and she would say "No dat not mine" 

 

For real Mom, get that camera out of my face!

Finally, I showed her what was in the eggs and she sat down and chowed on one, letting the boys do the rest of the hard work. 

Yes, Candy at 6am. You are the BEST Mom:)

SQUIRT: "BEST DAY EVER"

 Little Man: "Can't stop to smile, Too busy, MUST FIND EGGS"

After our ultra-healthy breakfast of Starburst and Jelly Beans, we got ready for church and had a photo shoot outside. I really didn't have very willing subjects, but they are cute none the less.

 I tried to get a cute picture of the dress I MADE for Ladybug. She wouldn't stand till, but you can still see it. It turned out pretty cute. (Just don't look too close)

 Hey, look at the camera!

 No, you look at the camera!

 This is so lame Mom!

 Say I love sugar... SUGAR!!

At church: Little Man chowed on even more candy that he had smuggled in, Squirt passed out on the bench, and Ladybug ran laps outside the Chapel for a full hour. 

Can you say SUGAR HIGH?!!?

My husband has issues with cars, it's no secret.  He just bought car #11 last weekend. That officially makes it one for every year we've been married.

He's been talking about buying a new car since the last one was about a month old. He was in a rush to buy a car last time and came home with a royal blue PT Cruiser. It was the strangest purchased he'd ever made, and to make matters worse, when he got the license plate in the mail a few days later, it said "AMY 956" (there is another person down the road with a AMY license plate and my neighbor has an AMZ plate, so I guess he just got the bad luck of falling at that point in the alphabet) Because of the combination he got made fun of by nearly everyone that met him.

Well last week I started getting some emails from cars.com. Then he went "looking" on Saturday and I got a text asking for my Social Security Number, I knew I was screwed at that point.

Well, I now have one happy man on my hands, and my kids are ecstatic because new cars are just too cool (and too frequent around here!) And don't tell my Hubbie, but it is AWESOME to drive. I feel so high up and powerful, kindof makes going back to the mini-van day after day a little bit sad!

Here's his history, it's kindof comical but boring. You can skip it if you want, I won't be offended:)
When we got married,  Hubbie had a Ford Ranger (#1), when we were literally 1 month from paying it off, he decided he wanted a Jeep Cherokee (#2). Then we added a 2nd car, a Mazda truck (#3). We were just making the payments for his brother, and he wanted to get it off his credit so he sold it a few months later, and Hubbie got a Dodge Ram (#4). The Ram started making a funny noise that the mechanic said sounded expensive, so he decided to trade it in on a Chevy Malibu for me (#5) and he'd drive the Jeep.  A few months later my brother totaled the Jeep, leaving my husband no choice but to buy his dream car a Jeep Wrangler (#6). It only took about 6 months to realize that a Wrangler can't even hold groceries, let alone a child and all the crap that go with them, so he sold that and bought a Dodge Dakota (#7).  Meanwhile, the Malibu I was driving was a total lemon and was in the dealership every other week having work done to it, at probably the 10th visit to the dealership Hubbie declared that he was not leaving with this car and they better give him a deal on something else, and he came home with my mini-van (#8) I'm still driving that car 5 years later by the way.  Meanwhile, the economy slowed down and we couldn't afford the Dodge Dakota anymore, so he sold it and bought a Pontiac Grand-Prix (#9). The boys named it Daddy's race car. It probably only took about 6 months to realize that he got a shady deal and the Pontiac was dying. It sat in our drive way for quite some time, but Hubbie was working nights, and I was working days, so it didn't really matter. When Hubbie got the call that he was being transferred to days in a week, he had to get a new car, and in came the rushed purchase of the PT Cruiser (#10).  He drove that for 2 whole years and then traded it in on the truck (#11) and ON THE WAY HOME FROM THE DEALERSHIP said "I bet I could get them to give me a deal on the van..."   Lord, Help me. I might kill him!

Good times, people... good times. I have a dream that one day I won't spend a small fortune each month on car payments. One day, one day...

Pine Wood Derby

Our first pine wood derby was a success!  Little Man had a blast designing the car and painting it, Dad stressed like any Dad does that the wheels be balanced, the weight right, etc...

 A few days before the race Hubbie was giving his Dad a hard time about how seriously he took all of their pine wood derby's.   They laughed about how he used to keep the cars in a cotton lined box until they had been raced. Once the wheels were on and the graphite applied NO ONE could touch the cars. It was serious business.   Well, before the race I find Hubbie in the kitchen cutting up some quilt batting he found in my stash of crap. What is he doing?

Lining a shoe box with cotton for the car. I literally laughed my butt off.





 

Little man had a blast and won several of his races. Like the one above, he's on the left!  Squirt is so excited to do it when he turns 8, he's already drawn me pictures of what he wants his cars to look like for when he's 8, 9 & 10!  Silly boys:)

STUDENTS of the Month!!

In December Squirt was student of the month. Squirt is like this little angel in class, never wanting to make his sweet teacher upset, so this didn't surprise me at all, I'm still super proud of him, of course:) They don't know prior to the assembly that they will be picked. Also he didn't see me sitting in the back, so he was completely surprised when they called his name. It was super cute. They get a bumper sticker but he was so excited about it that he stuck it too his sweater, so unfortunately it wouldn't stick to my car (oh darn!!)

His teacher wrote this about him:
Squirt is such a pleasure to have in my class. He is a good worker and gets along with all of his classmates. He is great in class discussions. It is fun to see his enthusiasm for learning. He is very deserving of being named Student of the Month. 
 
 

In January Little Man was student of the month. This one shocked me and I couldn't be prouder. He has made huge improvements this year, and I'm thankful that his teacher recognized him for that. He saw me when he walked into the gym, looked really confused, then I could tell that he realized why, and then he blushed and ducked his head. It was sweet. He walked home and promptly slapped his bumper sticker on my car... oh well.

His teacher wrote this about him:

Little Man is an amazing student. School just seems to come so naturally to him. He is always prepared when he comes to school and never forgets his homework. Keep up the great work! I have no doubt that you can accomplish anything that you set your mind to.

He was excited, I swear