Yay!!! Darn!!!

This morning I woke up at 4:00 AM like I have the past few nights....darn. So I watched the morning buzz at 5:00 AM and the news and heard all about Michael Jackson's death again.

So then I thought to myself, what could I do before all the kids wake up this morning?....hhmmm. I know! I'll paint the front door! I'm weird like that. So I grab my pale of red paint and start painting the front door. Yay! But I run out of paint at the very end...darn. Well, I can't leave my door only mostly painted or else I'm sure to hear from the HOA. So I wonder to myself again..."I wonder if adding water to the can helps....hhhmmm". Well it works out, kind of. The paint, being very thin, runs down the door as I'm trying to paint and is doing so at a very fast rate. It's good enough to get me by though.

Then I get to admire my front door! From the porch, then from the street. Hopefully it doesn't stand out to much or look weird. I make a mental note to grab more paint TODAY, or else I'll never do the touch up paint.

The kids and I have a pretty uneventful day which is nice. I like having those every once in a while. We met friends at McDonalds and sat for a long time, talking and playing. When we leave, the kids and I decide we're going to buy daddy a betta fish for his fish tank and pick up the same red paint from Walmart while we're there. The cashier lady lets me pay with the rolled coins that are weighing down my purse. I had 6 rolls in there and they were heavy! But I'm grateful because she saved me a wait at the bank with all the kids to deposit them into my account. Lol....I'm so embarrassed to having admit that.

Then we get home. Dane has fallen asleep in the car and the kids have run inside the house, leaving all the van doors open for me to close...again. That's so irritating! Close the darn door on your way out of it! It's not that hard!!! So I grab the fish in one hand, put my arm through the plastic bag loop that's carrying the red paint, and grab a sleeping baby from the car.

Now being my lovely, pregnant, and tired (4:AM remember) self, I lean down to put the red paint can on the living room/dining room table. It falls. DARN!!!! Dane wakes up and there's a nice pile of red paint on my living room floor. (I never think to take pictures while I'm in the moment.) I wish I could have shown you guys this scary pile of red paint. I'm trying to scoop it up and not drip anywhere. I'm wetting all kinds of old kitchen towels but ya know...red paint doesn't exactly soak up into anything. I spent the next 3 hours on hands and knees scrubbing at this sucker, talking to Christian on the phone saying we either need to re-carpet or buy an area rug..."no dice" he says. Darn!

But good news, the red paint mostly did come up. YAY!! Not with carpet cleaner mind you...nope, that stuff just made it into a dull pink, kool-aid looking stain. Spray and Wash did the job. So great news Christian!! I won't be calling Express Flooring after all.

Now I'm really exhausted. Looks like frozen pizzas for dinner tonight...the kids won't mind.

Dane's 2nd Birthday Party at Jeepers...

Here's some video of Dane's birthday party at Jeepers back in May. I thought I should put it up here so family could see it.
The following clip is Melody and Dane playing Dane's absolute favorite game.

Melody's 7th Birthday

Melody turns 7 years old on Father's Day this year! Seven! I can hardly believe it!! We told her she can invite a couple friends to go to the Phoenix Zoo with us on Saturday and then we could go swimming afterwards. We told Melody that there probably won't be any presents this year but that we were going to make it a fun birthday that she'll remember. We are still doing a birthday cake and icecream though and the blowing out of the candles for wish making.

So speaking of wish making...there's been one thing that Melody has been asking to get for months now and Christian and I were really "on the fence" about it. And the thing she wanted most was...a bird. Melody is in love with animals.

Since summer vacation began she's been taking care of our family pets and doing a really great job. She makes sure Maggie has water every morning, scoops the cats litter box, gets the cats their food and water, gives the baby chicks water a couple times a day, feeds the chickens, plays with the chicks, checks for eggs, and picks up dog poop. Even though she's totally proved herself to us that she can take really great care of pets, Christian and I did not want to add anything else to our "barn yard".

Last night we went out as a family to IHOP and then I had to run an errand to Home Depot. A Petco was right next to us, so we went inside to see the animals first before we went into the boring store.

And this is what we found there...

Petco was having some half off sales on their birds and the bird items were all being discounted. So Christian and I huddled together and decided we were going to give Melody her own bird for her birthday wish. They had a little bird enclosure behind some glass doors so daddy went inside with Melody so the lady could talk to her about taking care of a parakeet. Daddy was right there with her so he learned some important things too.

She's named him Timmy. He's young and already pretty tame for coming from a pet store. Melody has loved holding him and he sits on her finger and likes to hang out on her shoulders and chew her hair.

Happy Birthday Melody!

Love,

Mom & Daddy

"Daners"

Dane celebrated his 2nd birthday - May 28th! I've been meaning to post pictures and tell a little about him. Better late then never??

Favorite Foods: Pancakes, Mashed Potatoes, Macaroni & Cheese, Pizza

Favorite Things To Do: Ride his tricycles, play outside, throw balls, suck his thumb and twiddle his blankets, take baths, run around nude after bathtime

Biggest Accomplishment this past year: Learning new words!

Yeah, No, Candy, Outside, Sit, Thank You, Shoes, Uh Oh, Daddy, Mamma, Mine, More, Drink

I can't think of more words at the moment.

Least Favorite Thing To Do: get his diaper changed

Pet Peeves: anyone leaving the house without him gets in trouble

Funny Things Dane Does:

-He'll pat/smack your arm, legs, cheeks, and anything else to get and hold your attention when he has something important to show or tell you.

-He loves to dance to music and he fist pumps to music which is hilarious to watch

-He'll run away from Melody whenever she tries to help put his shirt, shorts, or shoes on. This drives Melody crazy but he thinks its the best game ever.

-He gives the best hugs and kisses and gets so excited afterwards (because I always make a big deal about getting kisses from him)

I'll make another post about his birthday party at Jeepers. We invited family to join us at Jeepers and we were there for a really long time. 4 hours to be exact but the kids absolutely loved it! And I loved getting to hang out with brothers, sisters and both sets of grandparents.

Red Paint

OUR PAINTED FRONT PORCH BENCH...CUTE HUH?

The kids and I had a fun time yesterday painting our chicken coop and our park bench red yesterday. During the day we let our nice, docile chickens out to walk around in our backyard. So we let them out while we did our painting. Helloise had to stay inside the coop though because she's a crazy chicken and the kids were a little nervous painting with her so close to them. That's why the perch inside is still unpainted. Helloise, can be a little scary. Even Christian is a little frightened of her. You can guess why we named her Hellouise.

HELLOUISE

THE CHICKEN COOP BEFORE

THE CHICKEN COOP AFTER

Speaking of Hellouise...we just acquired her and her 10 baby chicks. She joined the rest of our chicken brood only about a week ago.

My husband and I spent last Saturday trying to catch her and her babies. NOT an easy task. She was running lose, along with a rooster, and her 10 chicks on my grandma's acre property. They just decided to wander over and live there I guess. I wish we had taken some video or something to show you how funny we looked trying to catch these birds. Did you know that chickens really can fly? Well, we didn't want the rooster so he's still marching around over there. Anyone want a rooster? No? How about some baby chicks?

9 of the 10 Baby Chick-ies

I had my mom come over on Monday and we trimmed all 11 chicken/chicks wings so all they can do is fly around in circles now. Just kidding. Trimming wings sure calmed them down a lot though. The chicks are living in a little cage in our kitchen until they are big enough to add to our chicken coop. We've named most of them...the one's we can tell apart.

Spot, Mike, Stripe, Piggy, Dozer, Beaker, and Mario. So the chicks are pretty cute and the kids like to take them out and hold them every chance I'll let them. We'll keep a couple hens when we figure out what gender they are and then we'll be looking for homes for the rest.

We get brown and white eggs every day! It's a pretty cool deal.

Still a Mystery

My recommendation is... don't schedule a late appointment on a Friday. Our technician didn't even try to find out the sex of the baby. She took measurements and we were out of there in twenty minutes. Christian thinks she was in more of a hurry to finish her work week then in giving us a thorough ultrasound. The baby was moving a lot and flipping over when she went to take measurements so I know it was hard for her. Good news is they're going to need better pictures of the head so I'm going to get to go back for another one. I've never had that happen before. Usually I'm in for 30-40 minutes and they give us lots of pictures to take home. That was not the case this time. Baby Hughes is still a mystery...stay tuned. And my mom-in-law thought it was really neat regardless. She said she was greatful the technician was pointing out different things because she had a hard time telling what things were.

Boy or Girl???

We won't know for another 4 hours whether baby Hughes is a boy or girl. I'm so ready for my appointment!!! By the way, staring at the clock just makes it move slower in case you ever wondered. Anyways, I'm betting on a girl this time so I'll be sure to let you all know if my pregnancy intuition is correct. So far I've guessed right on my other 3 pregnancies. My appointment is at 5:00. That way my hubby could be there since he couldn't take any time off work. I also invited my awesome mom-in-law to be there since she's never seen or experienced an ultrasound before. This could be her only opportunity and ultrasounds are so neat! The 3 of us are really excited to see the baby. Hopefully baby Hughes cooperates. I have girl names already picked out and narrowed down to 2 that I really like. If she turns out to be a he...then I've got nothing and I'll be taking baby boy name suggestions. Stay tuned folks!

Easter Pics from Saturday

Here everyone! I was just snapping pictures and trying to stay out of the way.

2009 Easter Egg Hunt

Our Easter Egg hunt was a success on Saturday even though it rained a lot. Amy Hadley and I were determined to not get rained out. Thanks to Amy, we were able to secure the Alma 11th ward building. A lot of friends and family showed up and everyone brought eggs to hide and share. After we utilized all the good hiding spots in the primary room we ended up just putting the rest of our eggs all over the floor for the little one's to pick up.

We had chocolate covered strawberries, capri-suns, pizza, and bread sticks to munch on while the eggs were being hidden. First we let in the kids 3 and under to look for eggs for the first 2-3 minutes by themselves.

Then we let in the older kids. The egg hunt lasted only a few short minutes after that. Those kids are pretty effecient egg hunters...

Thanks everyone for coming! That was really fun. I'll see about doing something similar next year. Hopefully we won't get rained out again.

My Retreat

So last minute I decided I was going up to a retreat in Show Low with all the girls who pulled together the "Two Sisters One Heart" fundraiser. I wasn't planning on leaving until a little later Saturday morning but got a phone call saying lets go earlier! So I quickly finished packing and loading the van and made my rounds of picking up some ladies. I got to pick up and ride with Mandy Bailey which was really neat. I got a chance to get to know her better on the long long van ride up there.

We got to Jamie Kieta's family's "cabin" which was so cute and just perfect for such an occasion as this. We talked, ate, played games, Carol documented everything about our trip which was WAY cool by taking pictures of everything. For dinner Saturday night we went to the Mexican Restaurant and made a rucus. I think some of the ladies in our group even told the servers to put us away from everyone else because we were gonna be loud. The ladies in my ward are fabulous and I grew to love them even more.

How neat that not only being in a ward family but having this fundraiser was able to bring such a neat group of women together. We learned about all of our own highs and lows. I was surprised to learn that even the woman that I thought had everything together and in my mind were perfect had their own struggles. All of your testimonies made my own just that much stronger.

I missed Jamie's devotional Friday night because I couldn't get up there that early. Carol was in charge of Saturdays devotional though and it was magnificant! We went from laughing hard, to crying, to laughing, to crying...

What a wonderful weekend ladies...and sorry I was such a party crasher Saturday night.