Happy St. Patrick's Day!

I feel so lucky to have such cute kids who love to get dressed in green on St. Patrick's Day. You would have thought it was Christmas around here as excited as they were. As a tradition in our family I draw a little shamrock on the kids cheek with green marker, even Bree wanted one on her cheek. When I was little my mom would put a little foil shamrock sticker on our cheek to wear to school. She always put a few extra in my pocket to give to my friends. I wish I could find those stickers, it is one of my favorite memories! I have had enough food tinted green with food coloring to last me at least until next year, yuck--not a fan of food coloring.
LOOK! Can you see the grass behind my kids??? Unless you live in upstate NY you will find it hard to believe there is still grass under all the snow we had this year. 145 inches to be almost exact! We beat out Buffalo and Rochester by at least 40 inches. That is not a competition I like to win! Joshua keeps reminding me that tomorrow is the first day of Spring and we should be getting out the summer clothes. I hope he is not devastated to find out the high tomorrow is going to be about 41.

Please tell me this happens to you too...

I was rushing about the house yesterday looking for Gabriella's shoes so we could get the kids to school on time and I could not find them anywhere! She likes to play with them throughout the day and so they end up in strange places. After looking in a few places, I came up with the shoes in the picture above. Three shoes, not one of them a matching pair. At this point I was desperate and was willing to put her in unmatching shoes. Well, as you can see from the picture they are ALL THE LEFT SHOE!!! What the heck? It was one of those mornings...

Luckily, I found her church shoes.

Fun around the house--cause it is too cold outside!

Daddy and Gabriella dancing on the table. You should see her tiny feet move! Love the sunglasses baby girl!

Another chocolate lover in the family! Aunt Nanna sent us each a little box of See's candy for Valentine's day. I thought I would get to eat her chocolates too, but she found them and enjoyed them all at once. Little stinker, I have many chocolate finger smudges all over the house to remind me how much she likes chocolate!
Snow, snow, go away! Just when we began to have little patches of grass poking through the snow, it dumped on us again. Another 2 feet over the weekend! It is getting really, really old. We didn't get a chance to take down the trampoline this fall and tried to get Mariah to bounce it off, it didn't go so well. Hope it has some spring left in it after the great thaw!

"This is too much fun for Joshua!"

Those were Joshua's words as he played in "magic goo" yesterday. I guess in his little mind if something can be that fun and messy he probably shouldn't be doing it! Joshua has been really stir crazy the past few days (winter will never end) and I found this recipe for magic goo on familyfun.com. It is really cool. When you press it into a ball it goes hard, but when you release pressure it turns into a liquid. It was messy, but wiped up easily! Here is the recipe:

1 cup corn starch
3/4 cup warm water
Add water a little at a time and stir as you go. Add more water if it is too hard and more cornstarch if you can't make it press into a ball. It takes a little mushing to figure out what it feels like.

Have fun, but in Joshy's words--not too much fun!

Ever since we went to Utah Joshua has been asking me to make him some capes. Aunt Katie's kids had one and he loved it. Well, we finally got around to it and he has hardly taken it off since. You can't tell in the piture, but he has about 8 things tucked into his belt. They are his weapons. There are pencils, kabob sticks, a pez dispenser, and a I think the pen his Grandpa made him. I don't know what kind of villian will be scared away by this collection of weapons, but you can tell he is very serious about his toughness by the look on his face. I love this kid!
This season is our first attempt at soccer. Joshua has been begging to play for awhile now. He was excited about it the first day until he realized that some of the other teams had blue uniforms. Now he is grumpy about going because he thinks his uniform is ugly. Should I be concerned about his fashion desires? It's pathetic to hear him whine in front of all the other players that his shirt is not cool. He is trying to learn the rules of soccer, but tells me it is much easier to stop the ball with his hands than with his feet. I understand Josh, it makes more sense to me too:)

Pictures from Utah

I love this picture of Gabriella. I kept telling her to smile and she kept doing this serious face. The fact that I am posting this picture goes against all I believe in. I DO NOT think that kids and guns are a good combination. Anyway, Kris and his Dad set up a target practice (Crazy!!!) in the living room and Bree was a natural. Kris was very proud!
This is Jamie and her 2 sisters (Katie and Christy). It is so fun to be together with them.
Sweet Samantha on her baptism day! She looked so precious all in white. You could tell she was very excited to be baptized. They grow up too fast...

Samantha's Baptism and a Quick Trip to Utah

I have not updated our blog in quite a few weeks and there is so much I want to post. Unfortunately, I am having difficulty getting the pictures to upload so I will just have to add them later.

We took a very quick trip to Utah at the end of January to have Samantha be baptized with her cousin Sydney. It was so fun to have our family there to celebrate this special occasion with her. We are so lucky to have such supportive families! We spent a few days with each side of our families and could not have had a better time. It really made me homesick. I loved watching all the cousins play and I loved being with my sisters and sister in laws. Kris was able to come with us this time. It is amazing what difference an extra set of hands makes on such a long airplane ride:)

There were many fun moments on the trip, but one that I will not forget for a long time is celebrating Samantha's birthday with all my family. We went to my Grandma's house and all my aunts, uncles, and cousins were there. It was so fun to see Samantha celebrate her birthday with the same crazy bunch that I celebrated with all growing up. I don't know when it started but somewhere along the way we all realized what a pathetic group of singers we were, so instead of trying to sing "Happy Birthday" to the special person we try to sing it horribly. I don't know if it makes us feel better to know that we are not trying to do it well, and so we don't feel like failures when it comes out the way or what. Whatever the reason it is quite the sound to behold. Now, you have to remember that the last time Sam had it sung to her by this group of people she was 1. You can imagine her surprise, (shock) when a group of about 25 people begin yelling (I have to admit it was one of the best performances I have ever heard)the Happy Birthday song at her. The poor girl looked at me as if to say,"who are these people, and why are they doing this to me?!?" That is the joy of extended family, they just grow on you over the years and they do not seem that strange, but you look on as a newcomer and wonder what planet you have been thrust into:) I love my family and I am so grateful that they make the effort to visit with us when we come to Utah. I am sure you made an impression on poor Samantha that is not going to be forgotten. She loved it!

It was also a great treat to visit the Draper Temple open house. My in-laws live within 1/2 a mile of the temple and we have watched the process step by step through my father-in-laws blog (see Dad's blog to the right). He was the stake historian for the project and got to know the builders and contractors very well. He has some great shots and it was fun to see the process through his eyes. The building is beautiful and it was fun to share it with my kids.

As always, we appreciate our families willingness to drop their busy lives and entertain us when we come to town. We wish it was more often. Come visit on the east coast anytime, we would love to show off our snow!

My Baby is 10!

This year we celebrated Mariah's birthday a little differently. Since we are going to Utah in a few weeks she decided she would rather celebrate with her cousins. It is the first year in a long time that she has not had a party with her friends so it was strange. Anyway, we went to Disney On Ice the day before her birthday and she took her friend Brooke with us. It was a fun show and Gabriella actually held still for the first time her life as she watched. Of course that lasted about 15 minutes, but those 15 were awesome!
On her actual birthday we had a family party at home. Joshua was SO hyper all day anticipating the whole thing! I thought I was going to have to toss him in the snow to get him to chill 0ut a bit, but we survived and I was glad he was so excited for her. He said the prayer for dinner that night and among other things he asked that Mariah's birthday would be beautiful, pretty, and lovely and just a little bit wiggly. I guess we had told him more than a few times to stop bouncing off the walls all day. Needless to say we had a hard time not laughing as he finished praying. Samantha made the birthday poster for her that is on the wall. Mariah is lucky to have siblings that are so happy about her birthday.

Mariah is a beautiful girl, who we love so much. She is an amazing big sister who loves protects her siblings. They all trust her and go to her when they need help or in Joshua's case if I tell him no about something he just says he will ask Mariah to get it for him. She is also a fabulous student and I couldn't be more proud of her. We are so lucky to have had this little girl with us for 10 years! I cannot believe how fast the time has gone, but I am excited to see what the next 10 years has in store for her! Hopefully it will not go as quickly as the first 10 and of course I am sure we will just sail through the teen years without a glitch:) Happy Birthday Buggy! We love you!!!!!

Thanks for the cute pj's aunt Christy!

After our family celebration Mariah gave each of us a ring with a cute letter rolled up in it. She is so thoughtful!