Minks on the loose!

We had a little exciting happenings today. My neighbor Michele called and said her dog was going crazy this afternoon and she went out and saw a long furry black thing. It was hissing at her dog but not at her. Our other neighbor, Cami, had the good sense to remember the mink incident a week ago when 7000 minks were let loose by an animal activist. It was not far from our neighborhood. I called animal control and they came to check it out. The picture of the one in the cage is a male that was caught about 1/2 mile from our house. The mink out of the cage is the one that was in our neighbors yard. It was between the shed and the fence. The animal control guy said they have only caught a few hundred out of the 7000! And they have been seen from the 4 corners of the county. They like water and will hide in places they feel safe-like between the shed and fence or in a window well.

Back to the laundry.......

Sweet, Sweet baby

Isn't she sweet? She is most of the time. When people ask me if she is always this happy I say "She is a girl. She is either very happy or very sad." Last night Brad told someone that she was happy if she was well fed and had enough sleep. That sounds like me!
I have decided that I would love to bottle the smell of babies. This is one thing I will miss the most. I love the smell of dreft, baby shampoo, and spit up milk (gross, I know-buti still love it). So if you see sweet Sarah with a dirty shirt, now you know that I just love the smell of stinky milk.

What to look for on Sat afternoon.

I took this picture of Paige before one of the MANY dress rehearsal practices. This will be what she looks like on Sat so you know what to look for. She is sitting on the far left side (looking at the choir) 5 rows up (about 1/3 of the way) and 2nd to the very end. Brad and I will be able to go thanks to Josh and Angela in North Carolina. Josh just happens to be the perfect person to be friends with right now. He is in charge of handing out General Conference tickets for his stake. Thanks again. And thanks especially to marcia for being willing to take #5 for us. I don't just leave her with anyone, but I will leave her with Marcia. :)

Paige is excited for next Saturday. How cool is it for her that she gets to be in a children's choir to General Conference? When the Bishop asked her she thought it was just a group of 5 children from our ward performing during conference. She was visibly relieved when I explained to her it would be about 350 children.

Now we just pray that she will remember to not: touch her face, sneeze, have to use the restroom, smile all the time (it brightens your face), keep her arms to the side, that her hair stays out of her face, and all the other rules that she needs to follow.

I finally did it. I took Sarah on the boat. Some of you might know that I am afraid of the water. That fear comes from my 2 brother-in-laws (who shall remain nameless....WYNN AND PAUL) forced me in the water when I was about 10 years old. We were water skiing and I thought I wanted to try. But when it came time to jump in the water I had changed my mind. Wynn and Paul were not going to let me chicken out and they forced me to try it. The worst part is no one ever told me what to do when you fall. It makes sense to let go of the rope, but when you are already scared and 10 years old common sense goes out the window. So, that is why when Brad said "Lets buy a boat!" I said "No, way". You can see who won.

That is why I have not been on the boat all summer. I did not want to take my sweet baby on a boat that could possibly tip over and then she could drown. But I found a life jacket that I felt good about. We took our friends out with us, along with a neighbor who is the same age as Rian and Bryson (our friends son). I sat on the boat and held Sarah very tight. It was a beautiful night. Just a tad bit of rain but the lake was smooth and empty. No drownings to report.

By the way-I don't have any hard feelings toward Wynn and Paul. They have redeemed themselves as brother-in-laws since. Other than my life long fear of water, I have no other issues about the skiing incident.:)

Way to use your head...and your feet!

Last night Rian had the best game of his soccer playing life! The night didn't start out so great because we left a little late for the game and then the traffic after we picked up Brad was horrible. So by the time we found the field he was 25 minutes late. But luckily the game was delayed because the refs had not arrived (they never did). We invited my sister, Karen, because the game was in W Jordan by her house. She brought us pizza and we had a little picnic. The kids had fun playing and Sarah loved the wind. Now for the best part-Rian had a good first half. But during the second half Max, his coach, told him to block a corner kick by heading it out of the other teams goal. And he did! It was a beautiful header. Rian can always direct the ball good with his head-even with his faux hawk. Then closer to the end of the game we were trying to score and it was jungle ball for a minute but Rian was able to slide the ball in after it bounced off the other teams goalie. (at least this is what I think happened-I could be changing this later) He played really hard last night and it payed off!

It was fun to see how excited he was and how excited the other players were. The game ended up being tied. I tried to get a picture of him after the game but it was too dark and just didn't happen.

It was a fun night for us. Max said we needed to take him to get ice cream. We couldn't pass up Leatherbys since we were right by it. We went to get "Grandma Grace" sundaes. As you can see by the picture it is more ice cream than anyone should eat. We get two sundaes-the girl sundae and the boy sundae- then we all enjoy.

Luckily, there are no more games by Leatherbys.

a wii bit of an addiction

HELP!!!!! my two boys have a problem. All they want to do is play Wii. It drives me crazy. Well, it only makes me crazy when I say "Its time to eat!" and they say "we're almost done, just two more minutes". Ten minutes later they are saying the same thing. A few months ago I told them I would give them a five minute warning and then they had to be done. Even if I do the warning they still are not done. And they can't stop or they would loose what they have earned and have to earn it again. Isn't that the fun of it? To keep playing and playing and playing?

One good thing is they are willing to do about anything on a Sat morning so they can play. They will ask what their jobs are before they can play. That is when things are good. I can get a lot of jobs out of Rian so he can play. But, being the nice mother that I am :) he doesn't have to do too much before he can satisfy his addiction.

BTW-the new Star Wars game comes out tomorrow. And guess who is going to pick it up for my sweet boys to play? Rian did work hard mowing lawns for the money to pay for it.

delinquent tooth fairy

Emily lost a tooth on Thursday while eating an apple. She put it under her pillow that night and Friday morning we were eating breakfast and she said the too fairy hadn't come. Paige told her the tooth fairy usually comes 2 nights after you put it under your pillow. I told her the tooth fairy was probably very busy last night. Friday after school Emily pulled out the other tooth. Friday night she had two teeth under her pillow. Luckily and magically the tooth fairy came during the day on Saturday. She found the money before bed on Saturday night.

Another Quilt

In an Oregon quilt store I decided Sarahs souvenir was going to be a new blanket. I found some cute flannel and held a few choices up to her. She leaned and touched this wild print. I knew I wanted to try a new pattern my sister had told me about. So we bought the fabric and were on our way (to the beach, of course). She loves the finished product. But she has no choice to love it since I have had it wrapped around her since I finished it.

Sarah is a very tactile baby. She loves to feel things. Her favorite things to feel are "minky" types of fabric (hence the purple minky in the blanket) and tags. She will turn a toy around until she finds the tag and play or suck on the tag. I even made her a tag blanket with cute ribbons for tags. But she likes the real tags the best.

Sarah has also discovered Annie. Annie has been so patient with all our children. Annie has been dressed up and pushed in a stroller and had her ears pulled many times. Sarah just loves to grab anything she can get a hold of. Usually it is the ears. And Annie just puts up with it.

win a few, tie one and loose one

today was the start of 4 game saturdays. four out of five "luci" are playing soccer now. today was jakes first game and his first goal! as you can see i took an awesome picture of it! it actually made it through the other players feet. he said his favorite part of the game was scoring the goal and the picture of it. most of the boys on his team, "the bees", are his friends and that makes it fun for him and me.

soccer, soccer and more soccer. i guess i have to say i love it. even after watching the game for 8 plus years i still don't understand it (can anyone REALLY understand offsides?). but i still love to watch it. we have 5 games a week and 4 practices. it makes for a busy spring and fall but what else would we do? it is all we know.

finally....

i finally decided to start my own blog. after months of reading other peoples blogs (mostly my cute nieces and nephews) i asked my very patient friend, deborah, to help me start one. so here we go......

a few disclaimers:

as part of my "blogging" i have decided to boycott capitol letters. this is part because i have spent so much time typing emails with sarah on my lap or in my arms. it is hard to push that cap button and the letter at the same time with her around.

i don't claim to be an excellent writer or speller, or even to write things that are grammatically correct.

enjoy-