The Taylor Family

4th of July

2011-09-30T14:12:00.003-06:00

We got back from Canada just in time for the 4th of July festivities in Idaho Falls. Mike and I ran the Firecracker 5k which was super fun since there were a lot of people that we knew there. The race is along part of the parade route, so we could see where to set up our parade spot. I don't know what we placed, but it was our fastest 5k yet! No medals though, since they only give them out to the first place finishers and that was not us this time... :( Maybe next year!

After the race, we hurried home and got our kids and rushed back to see the parade. We got to sit with our friend Tammie, her parents and her kids. It was fun and perfect weather.

Mia and I waiting for the parade to start:
Then we went home and did chores. Woohoo! Not a very eventful holiday, but we spent it together as a family and had fun anyway. Later that evening we bought a few fireworks and lit them off in out cul-de-sac.

Then as it got dark, we headed up the hill to watch the big fireworks that they set off down by the river. Apparently a lot of people do that! I had no idea! It wasn't as exciting as being right down where the big booms were, but we got home in less than 10 minutes! That was better than waiting for hours in traffic just to get home. Next year we might have to brave the traffic... I love all of the people watching and the Big Booms! :)

O Canada!

2011-09-30T07:10:00.006-06:00

We were able to go up to Lethbridge this summer and celebrate Canada Day with my family. We like to go to the Raymond parade every year. It's just a little town parade, but fun for the kids and they throw out lots of candy. We even got a roll of toilet paper this year!

That afternoon we spent down to the river bottom in Lethbridge with my mom's side of the family for a little family reunion. It was fun to see my cousins and their kids and all the aunts, uncles, and grandparents. I stole some pics from my Uncle Brad's Facebook page since I did not take any pictures... Ooops!

Here is my mom and her sisters:

Grandma Simington, dirty face Mia and my sister Cynthia:

I got to hold baby Exton! What a cute chubby baby!
Grandpa Simington and my mom:
The next day, Mike and I ran a 5k in Raymond. I ended up getting first place for the women and Mike got 2nd for the men. He was 3rd overall and I was 4th. It was a pretty fun race. We even got gift certificates for winning. I got $50 to a running store in Lethbridge and Mike got a $20 Itunes gift card. Sa-weet!Then we got to spend some time at the Nicholas Sheran Spray Park with my family. My kids always love this place! It was the perfect weather for it too! My cousins Jason and Melissa and kids and Dave and Sonia and their kids met up with us there too. It was a fun afternoon.

Asia soaking up the sun:Mia copying her big sister:

Ethan the cool dude! Nice six-pack, buddy!
Jacob trying to figure out the elephant squirters:
Ethan and Asia trying to soak Jacob from the other end:

Snack time:

It was a fun little holiday! We can't wait to go up there again! :)

Circus, Entrepreneurs, and 10K - Oh My!

2011-09-16T09:58:00.010-06:00

We got 2 free kids tickets to see the Shriner's Circus, so we decided to take the family. It was a pretty fun time, although pretty cheesy at times! When we got to the gate to pay for our tickets, we saw that kids 3 and under were free. Sweet! We only had to pay for 2 adult tickets because we had 2 free kids tickets. The lady giving the tickets out didn't believe that Jacob was only 3. She looked all annoyed and asked when he was born. I said the date, but couldn't remember the year. You know how it is when you have too many kids and can't remember the day of their birthday, much less the year! Especially on the spot! So I fumbled and tried to count back from this year 3 years ago and couldn't figure it out fast enough. I said I could get his birth certificate if she didn't believe me! I was getting pretty ticked at this point. So she finally, reluctantly, let us in without paying for him. Sheesh! I'm gonna have to carry around my kids' birth certificates from now on! Especially Asia's since she's a giant!

This was the finale of the show, the elephants:

Pretty blurry, but the elephant is standing up on its hind legs:

The trapeze act was a big hit:

Me and the girls:

Daddy and his boys. Ethan really was having a great time. He thinks he has to look tough in pictures lately.:
It was a fun time, except intermission was waaaaay too long and the food was soooo outrageously priced! We splurged and shared a cotton candy for 5 bucks I think. The kids got free balloon animals out of the deal.

At the beginning of the summer, Asia and Ethan wanted to do a bunch of things that cost money. Things such as going to Blast Off, The Riot Zone, Lagoon, etc. I told them that we probably couldn't do everything like that this summer, but we could do some of them. I told them that they could earn their own money, then maybe we would be able to do more of those things. So, looking around our cul-de-sac, Ethan had the brilliant idea of starting a weed pulling business. He made these little fliers and taped them to our neighbors' doors. Nobody called though... But our next door neighbor decided to have Ethan start mowing their lawn. So he gets $5.00 every time he mows which is about once a week. He thought he had hit the jackpot since we don't pay him to mow our lawn! You can also tell that he gets paid to mow their lawn because our lawn has all these missed spots, and our neighbors' is immaculate! Ha Ha! Maybe we should start paying him...

Asia got this brilliant idea to make earrings/hair things. She got her friend Mara to come over and they started creating. They unfolded paper clips and got some of my cheaper beads and made these cute little things. Here are Asia's creations. Asia is more of a symmetrical person than Mara:
The signs Asia made. I like how she spelled barrettes!:
Another one of her signs:
She earned a whole dollar from our other next door neighbor!
Mara, however, did not sell any. She was pretty upset about it, til I brought out the freezy pops for everyone! Here are Mara's Masterpieces:
This is Asia and her friend Mara. Mara is 4 months older than Asia and they've been best friends since we moved to our great cul-de-sac.
In June Mike and I and our friend Chris ran a 10K in the Snake River Classic. It was a perfect day, not too hot and not too cold.

Mike won first place in his division and I won 2nd. I should've ran faster, dang it!

I ran with one of my sweet Young Women, Kaitlin. She's on the cross-country team at Hillcrest and is the awesomest girl ever! She used to always babysit for us until she turned 16 and dating was waaaay more important! She'll still babysit for us every once in a while... Oh, and we have the exact same birthday! She got first in her age group. Nice job Kaitlin!!

Rigby Lake Triathlon- May 2011

2011-07-12T17:05:00.007-06:00

Mike and I competed in the Rigby Lake Triathlon again. It was over Memorial Day weekend and was very cold again like last year. I don't know why we do this one... But this year we were a little bit more prepared than last and we knew what to expect. (Thanks to Chris for taking pictures for us and cheering us on. It's so nice to have someone there at the finish line and to have some pictures of our race!)

Here's Mike, setting up his bike and transition area and freezing his butt off!
Me, wondering why we are here...

Getting all ready to get in the frigid waters. (very attractive!):
Mike running up from the swim:
Me running up from the swim, a little disoriented:

Me trying to get my stuff on for the bike portion with numb hands and feet:

Mike coming back to transition on his bike:

Me coming back to transition from the bike portion of the race:
Mike sprinting across the finish line:

Me, not really sprinting so much. But I think I can finally feel my toes here...:
Yaaaay, we're finished! And look, the sun finally decided to come out, now that the race is all finished...:)
The best part of the whole race; a free massage! Aaaaaah!
Mike's in heaven!
Nice job, numbers 80 and 81!

I got first place in my division!! And cut a bunch of time off of my last year's time! WootWoot!

Next year the Rigby Tri will be on July 14th, my birthday and hopefully a lot warmer!!

Dancing Queen!

2011-06-20T14:21:00.003-06:00

For the last two years, Asia has been dancing with the Dance Depot and has loved it! They are a very well put together company that has AMAZING choreographers! And they wear pretty modest costumes and dance very modest routines. Here is Asia's final pose for her dance "Magic Carpet Ride." (She's the tallest one in the front with her arms up.)

Check out those lashes!
Flowers from her Daddy:
And some fro-yo from Orange Leaf to end the wonderful night:

Great job Asia, you did awesome!! And you were the most beautiful dancer there!

Random Spring Fun!

2011-06-09T14:56:00.019-06:00

Mike and I were able to take a little trip to Boise to go see Wicked. My parents and sister were able to come down and stay with our kids so we could go on a mini vacay. They're always so good to come and help us out! The show was kind of a disappointment for us. I know a lot of you are gasping as I say this, but it just wasn't my favorite... I actually got sleepy and closed my eyes for some of it! I guess with all of the hype about it for 4 months before we went, I was expecting more. I would rather see Les Miserables or Phantom any day. It was good, the songs were fun, but I just wasn't feelin' it. The best part was just getting away for a couple of days! Oh, and going out to eat at Tucano's Brazilian Grill!

Here's the stage before the show with the map of OZ as the curtain:

Waiting for the show to start:
We stayed overnight in Boise with Nathan and Amy and Mike's mom and dad. We got up the next morning, went for a jog by the river (I LOVE Boise for their jogging and biking trails by the river!), and then headed for home. We stopped at Shoshone Falls just outside of Twin Falls to see how much water was flowing. And this is what we saw:
Lots and Lotsa Water!
It was a wee bit nipply out there!! Ha Ha!

Asia had been learning about life cycles in first grade and specifically learned about the life cycle of a butterfly. They were able to watch a caterpillar make a chrysalis and then become a butterfly! She even got to bring her butterfly home. She named hers Lilly. It didn't fly away, it just stayed on her little damp washcloth and hung out! I thought that thing would be flying all over the house, but it just stayed in Asia's room for a couple of days. We thought it was mean to keep it inside any longer, so we said our goodbyes to Lilly and let her loose on to one of our beautiful tulips. Hopefully she didn't blow away with the wind!

Asia was a little scared to hold it, so her big brother held it over her hand:

Ethan holding Lilly:
Nothin' better than holding a beautiful butterfly and eating an ice cream cone:
It really was a pretty little butterfly:
My old wrinkly looking fingers holding Lilly:
A dandelion to suck nectar from and a leaf to lay on:
My nephew is on a ballroom dance team and is an awesome dancer. His team is actually in China right now performing all over and seeing the sights. Well, to raise money for this China trip, they held ballroom dance lessons for those wanting to try it out. I tried to get Ethan to try it, but he said, "No way! I'm not dancing with any girls!" (We'll see what he says about that in 6 more years!) So, Asia wanted to try it out with one of her friends. It was 5 hours of instruction with a little show at the end for the parents.

Blurry, but here she is waiting to dance:
And of course, the end pose:

She had fun, but still likes her Dance Depot and her teacher Laurie. I guess we'll be doing more jazz next year...

And one more thing. We have been noticing a pair of ducks in our front yard lately and thought that was pretty odd. There is a canal near our house, but have never seen any ducks hanging around until now. They would waddle in our front yard and into our neighbors' front yard. I thought, there must be an egg somewhere, otherwise why would these ducks be hanging around. Sure enough, I watched those ducks and noticed the mamma waddling over to our little potantilla bush. She squatted down and sat down under the bush. Here is what she was sitting on:
Now, these 2 ducks weren't the smartest. They picked the worst spot to lay their precious little egg! They should've scoped out the joint before settling in. If they had, they would've realized what a busy, loud, and chaotic spot it was! There are always kids around, cars driving in driveways, and mailmen driving right by. I watched and there wasn't 30 minutes that went by where there wasn't something or someone spooking those ducks off of their precious little egg. Poor little thing! I didn't know what to do! We went away for the weekend, came home, and there was no sign of the mamma or pappa duck. So sad! They had just abandoned their little egg. So we left it there for a few days, hoping they would come back, but they never did. We figured the egg was a dud by now and we had to get rid of it. It was a sad occasion, but hopefully those ducks learned an important lesson!!

2nd Chance Prom, Mother's Day and Anniversary

2011-05-25T00:35:00.009-06:00

It's 2nd Chance Prom time again! It's always fun to go to this every year. We get a bit sad if we're unable to go some years. It's just fun to dress up and have a fun night out with dinner and dancing. We don't get to do that very often. We went with some good friends of ours and had a terrific time eating at Garcia's and then dancing the night away. I like seeing what dresses the ladies wear. Some go all out and wear actual big prom dresses. Most wear church type dresses and some wear just pants. There were some pretty sa-weet dancers this year too! I'm a people watcher so this is a great event for me! And I love to go dancing with my hunkie sweetheart too!

The next weekend was not only Mother's Day, but it was also our 12th anniversary! So it was a great weekend for me especially! Mike kind of got the short end of the stick this year, having to share with me and all, but we still had a great weekend together. Friday night we got a babysitter and went to a wedding reception for one of my young women. Then we went to dinner at Billman's. (prime rib=yummy!) and then on to the Extreme Ballroom recital. We have a nephew, a niece, and many friends' kids that dance to the Extreme! It's always an awesome show and I'm still trying to convince my older 2 kids to try ballroom dancing... Maybe next year!

Then Saturday morning we had a nice jog around the river with the older kids on their bikes and the youngers in the double jogger. It was chilly, but sunny at least. Then we got to check out the Farmers Market downtown. I've never been to the one here and it was kind of fun to check out all the "granola" type things going on around our city! Ha Ha! Then we got some gourmet cupcakes from Love at First Bite. We got an assortment which included a bacon cupcake! I couldn't believe it, but it had actual bacon on it! It had maple frosting on the top so it tasted like pancakes and bacon with maple syrup. It was actually pretty tasty!!

Then the hubby surprised me with a pedicure with one of my besties, Rose. We went to Austin Kade Academy which is a beauty school here in town. They do an "ok" job, and it was cheaper than going to the Vietnamese place! And they turned out pretty cute: red with black zebra stripes. Rowr!!

Then we met up with our hubbies and our good friend Chris and went to dinner at Blue Hashi. We had yummy, yummy sushi and tempura. Mmmmm! There's nothing better than good food and good friends to share it with! Then it was off to see Limitless at the Paramount. It was a pretty good movie. I wouldn't see it again, but it was very intriguing...Then we had to finish off the evening with some fro-yo at Orange Leaf. Yum-o!

The next day was Mother's Day. It was a great day with food made for me and presents all over the place! My kids made little pictures for me and made breakfast: pancakes, eggs, ham, and OJ. Here are some of the pics the kids made. They are turned in my pictures folder, but for some reason they're not turned here. Sorry! Don't get a kink in your neck trying to look at them!

This one is from Jacob that he made at church:
Ethan's gift he made at school. It says "I'll try to be more responsible". He's always losing his things or forgetting to do stuff, so this is a great present from him!
And another little note from Ethan. It says "Dear Mom, You are the best mother I ever have (probably the only mom I'll ever have) Love your favorite child Ethan. " I laughed so hard!

Asia made a beautiful butterfly and bird for me:
Our babysitters had the younger 2 make little cards for me. Here's Jacob's:
And here's Mia's:
And another one from Mia:
And one last one from Jacob:
Oh, and I got a new ring for our anniversary:

Phew! I think that's it! What a crazy, busy, fun, relaxing, needed weekend!

Easter 2011

2011-05-24T23:42:00.004-06:00

The Easter Bunny made his regular appearance on the Friday night before Easter Sunday. So Saturday morning the kids woke up to see their Easter baskets filled with all sorts of fun stuff! The kids let us sleep in until 8 and then we all crept downstairs to see what surprises were hiding for us. The Easter Bunny loves to bring eggs filled with money and candy. He also likes to fill the baskets with books and fun outside things to get us excited about warmer weather... He didn't bring any new Easter outfits this year since the kids already had a bunch of dresses and ties. Maybe next year.

Then we were all able to go to McCowin Park for a local Easter egg hunt. It was separated into age groups, so Ethan and Asia went with their dad, Jacob went with Mariko who was visiting for the weekend, and I had Mia. Mia was so scared at first and didn't know what to do. She started looking around at the other kids and then there was no stopping her!

It was so cute watching the little 1 and 2 year-olds picking the eggs up! What was even more funny was the parents yelling at their toddler to get as many eggs as they could and finally just picking them up themselves! Yikes! What some parents will do just to get a little egg filled with cheap candy... Just sad! We had fun anyway!
Then on Sunday we had a lovely Easter program at church, followed by a super yummy dinner at the in-laws'; ham and funeral potatoes. Yum-o! Then my mother and father-in-law had an Easter egg hunt in their backyard. Each grandkid had their own specific egg color to find. Even the adults has some special eggs for them. Everyone had a great time!

Checking out the loot:

I finally found one!!
I think Ethan was one of the first ones finished:
Mia had the most fun I think!

Fun times! I'm especially grateful for the sacrifice of our Savior at this time of year, and for the wonderful example He is to me. I'm so thankful for the Plan of Salvation and for our Eternal Family! We are just beginning... :)

Fun Stuff!

2011-05-24T23:11:00.003-06:00

Here are just some random shots I just took off of my camera. This was a cute one. Ethan was playing his DS and Jacob came and sat next to him and starting watching him play. Then he gently put his hand on his back and just left it there. So sweet! Jacob's my sweet boy. And, yes, they both needed haircuts!

A rare, hot sunny day in April. The kids wanted to eat their snack outside on the picnic table. I made peanut butter and banana sandwiches in cute little heart shapes:

Yummy!
Then it snowed the next week! Gaaaah! We made the most of it and made one last snowman, hopefully...!
And it was fun to jump on the tramp with all of that heavy snow on it:

Another Tooth Missing and Crazy Hair Day!

2011-05-10T08:53:00.005-06:00

There have been some very exciting things going on in the Taylor household lately. First, we went to the orthodontist with Asia and Ethan last month because they will both need braces eventually. Asia has lost more teeth than Ethan already, so Ethan had to work extra hard to get the rest of his 8 front teeth out. He had one more tooth to go and it was starting to get loose. We wiggled it and wiggled it and it wouldn't budge. Then one night I tried to yank it and he had a royal freak out! So I said we would have to go to the dentist to have it pulled. He had that happen before with his 2 front bottom teeth and it was not a very nice experience. He remembered that, so the next night as he was lying in bed, he started working on that tooth and he pulled it out all by himself! He said it didn't even hurt and it actually surprised him a little! So here's the tooth. He decided to put it in a little bowl of water and leave it on the counter this time. (That made it especially easy for the tooth fairy!) ;) He got to have 4 whole quarters for being so brave and pulling his own tooth out!
We also had Spirit Week at the school a few weeks ago. I only got a picture of Crazy Hair Day. They had crazy sock day, pajama day, backwards day, and school spirit day. It's always a fun week for the kids and I was able to go to muffins with mom with them on one of the days. That's always a special treat in more ways than one!

Here's Asia. She's so particular with her hair lately and only likes to do it herself. She let me make it a little crazy for her today though. It was pretty fun to do!

And Ethan always likes to go all out for this day:
AWESOME!!! :)

Spring Break 2011

2011-05-09T16:10:00.012-06:00

Our usual trip to Las Vegas for spring break had to be cancelled this year due to scheduling conflicts. Mike had to do the final weigh-in for his clients that were participating in the Ultimate Loser competition right in the middle of spring break, so we had to postpone until next year. We were able to go to Salt Lake again for a little long weekend break, however. My parents were also able to come with us with was a special treat. We stayed at the Hampton Inn kind of in West Valley or something like that! It was a little west and south of Downtown. It had a nice hot breakfast and a nice pool and hot tub. We were able to go to the zoo for a day. It was nasty weather again, but cleared up a bit so we could spend the day outside at the zoo. Our favorite was the giraffes. They were licking the walls and trying to eat our shoes! Crazy giraffes!
Mia thought they were pretty funny and wanted to feed them her apple:
Jacob's a little excited about the giraffes:
And of course we had to ride the carousel:

Here's the whole gang outside Hogle Zoo. What a good-lookin' bunch!
We went and visited Temple Square as well. Jacob thought being in space was so cool when we went to see the Christus statue.
We got to visit the Discovery Museum again. We bought a 6 month membership because we knew we would be coming back and it was cheaper that way. Here's Mia, shopping at the store again. It's her favorite thing to do, just like her momma!

And Asia at the checkout:
We had a great time spending the weekend together as a family. We were also able to visit the D.U.P. museum which the kids actually loved. They had a little scavenger hunt for them to do there and it was fun to go through every artifact and learn a little bit more about our pioneer heritage. After the zoo we checked out This is the Place and read about the first pioneers that settled the Salt Lake Valley. It was so amazing to see see what the pioneers had to go through and how hard everything must've been for them. What a great sacrifice to believe in something so strong and to not let anything get in the way of your beliefs. I hope to be able to develop such a strong testimony to not let anything destroy it! I'm working on it! :)

St. Pattrick's Day and Wrestling

2011-05-09T15:38:00.003-06:00

We celebrated St. Patrick's Day with our traditional green scrambled eggs and pancakes and the wearing of the green shirts. The kids think it's funny to wear something not ALL green so when someone goes to pinch them, they can point to a little speck of green on their shirt and trick them! Silly kids! I remember doing that too, though. I would paint my nails green, or wear green underwear or something tricky like that!

Mia was pretty excited about her green pancake, but she wouldn't eat it all because it was green!

Ethan decided to start wrestling again this year. He took 3 years off because we started him when he was about 5 and that was a little young for him. There are some 5 year-olds that totally get the whole take-down, wrestle to the ground concept, but Ethan just didn't. So, this year he was totally psyched about the whole wrestling thing and couldn't wait to pin someone down to the mat. He had practice twice a week and a meet every Saturday and sometimes Thursday nights. The first 2 meets he was pretty pumped and was able to place in the top 3 in his weight category. But it just went downhill from there. He got beat pretty bad a couple of times and decided that wrestling just wasn't for him! His confidence was just not there anymore! It's frustrating because I know he could be awesome, but he just has to believe he can do it! I guess I need some lessons on how to teach him to have confidence and to want to work hard for something instead of giving up at the first sign of defeat... I'll work on that one!

Here he is trying to roll a kid over and pin him:

And one of the medals he earned at a Rigby meet. He also earned a whole dollar for winning a match:
I guess it's back to the drawing board to find something that Ethan is interested in. Anyone have any suggestions...?

Preschool Fun!

2011-05-09T15:10:00.005-06:00

So, I run a daycare out of my home and I get to tend 4 extra little cuties almost everyday. I like to do some preschool activities with them because it keeps them busy doing something and they are all about the same age. It works out pretty nice for Jacob and Mia because they always have someone to play with and learn with. One day I had to go to the store, so I made up these cute little shopping lists for them to keep them busy during the trip. I got this idea from my friend Allison who is an amazing Mom!

They pretended they were on a scavenger hunt, trying to find everything on their lists. It made the shopping trip a little less painful!

We like to do a lot of hands-on activities, and that means getting our hands a little dirty at times!
Here is Brystol finger-painting with chocolate pudding:

Brooklyn and Mia fingerpainting with pudding. It sure was yummy to eat later!
Maddux and Jacob:
Fingerpainting with colored shaving cream:

This wasn't so good to eat later!! Not that anyone tried... :)

We've had some pretty fun times this year and I'm going to miss these cute kids. I've decided to stop doing daycare and only do preschool next year. I have mixed feelings about it all! But I know that this is the best decision for my life and for my family. So, we are gong to have a blast these next few weeks, learning the rest of our numbers and going on some more field trips! Now I have to get my basement ready for some more adventures with some more cute little kiddos! It's gonna be fun! :)

Fun in Utah!

2011-05-09T13:26:00.005-06:00

We were able to take a quick trip to Salt Lake mid February to pick up/buy our new vehicle. Our lease was up on our van in April, so we decided to start looking and came across this Black Lincoln Navigator for a sweet deal! But it was in Colorado... So we decided to meet halfway in Salt Lake to make the deal. We were expecting the weather to be somewhat nice, at least in the 50's... But it happened to be even colder and snowed even more there than back home! Blah! Oh well, we had a fun time anyway.

We stayed in a pretty sweet little condo that had a separate bedroom and kitchen for only 43 bucks a night! Mike found it found it on Hotwire. It was a little dated, but it worked just fine.

We took the kids to the Discovery Museum at the Gateway Mall. It's always a lot of fun!
Jacob had to ride the horse:

Ethan's favorite thing was building with these soft block things:

Jacob's favorite was the water table/center:

Mia and Asia loved to shop at the pretend grocery store:

Mia and the vacuum ball thingy:

After the Discovery Museum we decided to go do a bit of shopping. Can you tell which one is the real mannequin?
How about here:

What about this one?:

This one's a little trickier...:

And one more:

My kids are such goofs! They do this everytime they see a mannequin. They pretend they're mannequins and see if anybody notices! Silly! So, I should have a picture of our new ride, but I just realized that I don't have one. Oh well. You'll have to wait til I take a pic and then wait until I have the time to blog about it!! Ha! 'Til then... :)

Valentine's Day

2011-04-22T15:10:00.004-06:00

Valentine's Day was a fun one at our house. the kids had to wear red, of course, and then I served them up some red heart pancakes and eggs.

They each got their own little box of chocolates:

Asia's heart hair:
The cooking of the heart pancakes:
Then we made and decorated millions of heart cookies:

Then we made our very own heart-shaped pizzas. Yum!
I got Mike a new ring and he got me flowers and chocolate cinnamon bears (my fave!) We also went out to eat on the weekend and probably went to a movie or something (I can't remember!) I've got to keep up on this blog thing so I don't forget stuff! Yikes!

Haircut!

2011-04-22T11:50:00.002-06:00

I'm finally posting the pics of Mia's haircut that we did in February. It was getting very long, but only in the back. She had what I like to call a Baby Mullet. And it was a fine one at that!

Now she has a cute little bob. It's so easy! Her hair isn't as thick as Asia's and it isn't as curly so it can just be wetted down with a spray bottle and looks as cute as can be. I like easy hairstyles!

And her eyes are starting to turn green like her daddy's! Beautiful!

Just Fun!

2011-04-13T14:01:00.004-06:00

The local figure skating club has a free skating lesson day every year that we like to go to. It makes me feel like I'm instilling some Canadian roots into my children! The only pic I could get of Jacob was blurry. Sorry! He didn't like the one blade skates but was fine on the two bladed ones. Ethan is a natural:

Mia had so much fun and wanted to go around and around the whole time!

Asia and her friend Maddie.

Since Ethan turned 9, he was ready to advance from a wolf cub scout to a bear cub scout. He earned his wolf pin and 3 silver arrows.

Mia likes to dress up in daddy's sunglasses and gloves and take his keys when he comes home for lunch. She thinks it's hilarious!

And here's Asia with our AWESOME babysitter Hannah. Hannah always brings fun things for our kids to do. This time they built a tower out of index cards! It was amazing! And yes, Hannah is 7 years older than Asia! She's such a petite little thing! Or Asia is a Giant!

Just some fun stuff that we've been up to the last few months of winter. I'm almost caught up now! Phew! Just February and March to go... Stay Tuned... :)

Ethan's Friend Party!

2011-04-13T13:39:00.004-06:00

This year Ethan decided it would be so fun to go roller skating for his friend party. They took him roller skating at Scouts and he's been bugging us ever since to take him again. It was actually really fun! The boys loved dancing to the music and seeing who was the fastest. I got to brush up on my rollerblading skillz as well! There was a lot of falling involved!

Ethan's IPOD cake:

Opening presents:

Some of the gang:

Blowing out the candles:

Fun times! I wonder what he'll want to do next year to celebrate the big 1-0!

Ethan's 9th Birthday!

2011-03-30T15:29:00.007-06:00

Ethan had an awesome birthday this year! He got to have breakfast in bed; French toast, bacon and eggs: We got to have lunch with him at school:

He chose to have French Crepes for dinner with strawberries, bananas, and whipped cream. (his favorite!)

Then it was present time! He got his very own skateboard and ramp:

His favorite gift: Sweet Moula! Thanks Grandma and Grandpa Yamada!

Then he chose to have brownies for his birthday cake. Yum-o!

Since Ethan is the oldest in the family, I feel like we put a lot of responsibility on him and we expect a lot out of him. It's not very fair to him, but he really tries hard to live up to our high expectations. He's an AWESOME kid! He is very loving and always loves a good snuggle with his momma or dadda. His favorite thing to do is wrestle with his dad and ride roller coasters. He's one of the smartest kids in his class and has straight A's and gets to go to Discovery class every Wednesday. He loves to read and is trying to get through the first Percy Jackson book. He's already read all of the Wimpy Kid books and Magic Treehouse. He's a great big brother and is always there when his younger siblings need help. It's fun to see this little guy grow up into such a fine young man. I just wish he would slow it down a bit!! We love you Ethan!

Asia's Special Day!

2011-03-30T15:19:00.004-06:00

Mike and I like to take each child out on a date with just the three of us for their birthdays. Asia chose to go to Applebee's for dinner. Then to Sundae's for dessert and then to Gameworld to play. I can't change the order of my pics for some reason, so here's Asia waiting to go down the slide at Gameworld in their little jungle gym thingy:

Mmmm, that's just Asia's ice cream! She ate most of it all by herself!

And Applebee's where she ordered chicken fingers.

She's growing up way too fast!

It's S'N'O'W' Fun!

2011-03-30T14:55:00.005-06:00

Here are just some fun pics of the kids enjoying the snow. Hopefully these will be the last snow pics of the season!

Ethan loves the movie ELF so he made perfectly round snowballs just like Buddy! Then he rolled them all down the hill. I think he was hoping they would get bigger and bigger as they rolled down, but they just rolled. Dang it!

Here's Daddy and Mia sledding at Community Park. She loved it and wanted to go down again and again!

The Talk

2011-03-07T22:17:00.003-07:00

So, I know I haven't posted anything in a very, very long time, but I had to write this funny thing down before I forget. Then maybe I'll try and update you on what's going on in our crazy lives. My computer is very, very slow so it's been hard for me to keep up on the blog. That will change soon as we get it overhauled hopefully this week or next.

Anyway, as we were driving back from my nephew's ballroom dance performance tonight, we started talking about when the kids were babies and when they were in my belly. So Asia brought up the dreaded question, "How do those babies get into your tummy?" Gaaaaah! She's only 7! I don't think I learned about that stuff until sex ed. in fourth grade! So
I guess it was time to tell her the truth before finding out some crazy story at school. We sort- of had "the talk" with Ethan last year because he had heard some things at school and was just curious about it all. But he, apparently, had forgotten some stuff and started saying babies come from Jesus and it's like some sort of miracle how babies get into a mommy's belly. But then he started to remember little details and said, "Oh ya, that's where a mommy and a daddy put their private parts together!" And Asia got this disgusted look on her face and said, "Eeeww! That's just NASTY!" Ha Ha Ha! Cracked us up so bad! Then they wondered if anyone could do this "nasty" thing. So we had to have a talk about who can do the "nasty" and what it's for, etc. etc. And then Ethan said, "Can't you do it just for fun?" That's when Mike and I totally lost it! Man, I gotta practice some sex ed. answers for these tough sex questions! YiKeS, I'm not ready for my kids to grow up!! HELP! :)

Christmas Festivities 2010

2011-02-03T21:24:00.008-07:00

Here are some of the highlights from this past Christmas. The kids helped me with our friend gifts; homemade goodies:

I forgot to take pictures of the neighbor gifts that we made and they were so cute! They were cute little vinyl boards with a cute little saying on them.

All of the Christams loot:

Santa Came! And Rudolph too!

The Stockings:

More Stockings:

The girls in their matching P.J's. We missed Cynthia and James very much:

The kids in their Christmas jammies:

Christmas Eve dinner at Bushido's. This may have to end up being a tradition. It was awesome!!

Christmas Sunday Pics:

More Christmas Sunday pics:

More Cruise

2010-12-29T16:17:00.008-07:00

Ok, so I started this post over a month ago so I figured I should finally finish it! Yikes! I'm so sad looking at all of these pictures of the hot weather and sandy beaches! Especially when our high today was in the minuses! Blah! Next time we will have to book one in February to escape this cold madness!

So, this is our first formal night of the cruise.

It was at this dinner that our captain informed us that one of the engines on the boat had died and we would not be able to continue on as far south as we had planned... So no St. Maarten and no St. Thomas! WHAT! It was a real disappoinment! We would be going to Samana, Dominican Republic and a private island owned by NCL. So we had to cancel both of our scuba diving excursions in St. Maarten, one of which was a shark dive that I was really looking forward to! Lame! We decided to try and make the best of it and find other diving excursions in Samana. But first, some formal pics:

Then the next day we arrived in Samana and found a place to go scuba diving for a fair price. Here we are coming off the tender boat to Samana:

Getting our dive equipment:

Going out to our dive site with our dive master:

Me diving:Mike diving:Mandy and Jason with a shell thingy:
Jason holding a starfish with a pokey thing on the bottom of it:
Really pokey thing:
Here fishy fishy:Very bubbly/silty group pic: Mike, Me, Mandy and Jason:Starfish:And me:

Our dive master didn't take us to very awesome places this time, but it was still fun and cool. I think he didn't know that we had been diving through caves and corridors before. We will have to let our next dive master know that we're ready to see sharks and caves and stuff!

Here we are making our way back to the ship:

Bye-bye Samana:

So then we had another relaxing day at sea, playing basketball and relaxing on the deck and taking pictures of my toes:

And more dinner pics:

The next day we went to NCL's private beach which was under construction. It wasn't too bad though. They had this HUGE blow-up waterslide that we got to go on and beach volleyball.

And there was eating and lounging of course!

Eating: Mmmm yummy pineapple!
And lounging:The Norwegian Sun:
Going back on the tender, boo!
The tender boats had these cool water shooters that cleaned off your feet before you went on the boat: Neato!
Our last dinner on the cruise. So sad! We decided to go to the sushi restaurant. It was sooo yummy and it was all you can eat! Let me tell you, we had ALL you can eat! And our last little towel animal- a cute little seal:
So, since we weren't able to go to the ports that we originally planned on, NCL compensated us with free drinks onboard (woohoo!) (sarcasm) and $160 credit on our account. They also are giving us 30% off our next NCL cruise. So we are in the process of finding another one. Probably in October sometime. Wanna go...? :)

Cruise- Eastern Caribbean

2010-12-29T14:34:00.008-07:00

Mike and I were able to go on another cruise with our friends Jason and Mandy Bell. This time we went out of Port Canaveral to the Eastern Caribbean. We took the Redeye, flew all night from Salt Lake to Atlanta, then Atlanta to Orlando and then caught a shuttle (Escalade) to the cruise terminal at Port Canaveral. We were exhausted! Good thing we wouldn't have to do ANYTHING for the next week! Thanks to my mom and dad and Naomi and Christina for staying with our kids at home. We couldn't do these trips without them! They're awesome!

So, as we were getting ready to shove off, we looked down and saw a manatee swimming around the ship. I've never seen one before!

Here's the Carnival Dream (the ship we were originally going to go on and probably should've went on!) Details to follow...

And here's the Disney ship. Someday we will take our kids on one of those... It would be so fun!

Hangin out on the Promenade deck. This ship was nice because it had a deck that you could jog all the way around it. I liked it better than the short jogging tracks on the Carnival ships. You have to go 100 times around those to even jog 3 miles!Us at the stupid muster (safety) drill:
Our second day we went to Nassau, Bahamas and decided to check out the waterpark at Atlantis. Here's the HUGE Atlantis hotel and resort:On the way to the waterpark, we walked over a bridge and through tunnels that had all kids of fish swimming around. Here's a hammerhead shark:And a tunnel with fish swimming all around us:
Here we are, takin a break from the waterslide action:
Mandy and Jason catching some rays:
So, they had some pretty wicked waterslides at this waterpark. I was actually brave enough to go on all of them. I was pretty proud of myself! Scared the poop right out of me though! Ha HA! So they had one that went STRAIGHT down and through a tunnel with sharks swimming around it. Pretty Narly! Here's Jason going down it:
Here's the tunnel and a big shark:
Here's me going down it:
And me afterwards! I survived!!! Cheesy, I know!

The waterpark had it's own private beach:
And a couple of racing waterslides that we went on a bunch of times. These are also pretty straight down:
It also had a lazy river, a rapids river, a bunch of swimming pools, waterslides with tubes, and a place to swim with dolphins and sea lions. It was a fun place to spend the day:
Then it was time to get back on the boat. We almost missed the ship! It was really weird. They said to be on the ship at 4:30. So, we get back to the dock and there was NOBODY around! We thought that was really strange and we started to get a bit worried. We got on the ship at 4:32 and we were the last ones on board! The Carnival cruises that we've been on, if they say to be back on the ship at a certain time, there's a bunch of people waiting in line to get back on the ship because they wait until the very last minute. I guess this cruise line is different. We went on Norwegian and probably 90% was 50 and over! It's not known as the "party" ship that's for sure! More like a geriatric ship! We should've known that all the old people would be on the ship by 3:00, ready to go! Geesh! Here we are saying goodbye to Nassau:

And here we are at dinner:

Mia is 2!

2010-12-29T13:33:00.005-07:00

Our Princess Mia turned 2 in November. She requested soft boiled eggs and toast for breakfast. She also has to have ketchup on her eggs. But I think she enjoyed her thumb more:
Then we had "noonles" for dinner, Mia's favorite. We had bowties with alfredo sauce and chicken. Yummy! Then it was time to open presents:
She got some play make-up which is her absolute favorite! Here she is putting "nake-up" on Jacob:And giving her daddy kisses:
And her cool new sunglasses:
Then it was time for cake. We were lucky that Auntie Mariko came for a visit and made her a butterfly cake. I can't seem to flip it though.Here's Ethan being sneaky trying to blow out her candle:
He blew it out! The nerve! Look at Mia's face!We relighted it and she was happy again! Dang big brothers!I can blow it out myself, Ethan!
And all pooped out:

Our Princess Mia is a little sweet pea. She loves her big brothers and big sister and wants to do everything with them and just like them. Hence, she is growing up way too fast! She wants to pee and poo on the potty and mommy is still trying to grasp that concept. The others were about 3 when I started to potty train them! We just started about 3 weeks ago and she's only had 2 accidents so far! I guess it had to happen sooner or later. Mia loves to dance and can't wait to take dance lessons just like her big sister Asia. She gets so mad when I drop Asia off at dance and she doesn't get to go! So she gets to wear little dance outfits all of the time to make up for it. She also loves to sing and play with babies and barbies. Her most favorite thing, though, is make-up. (or nake-up as she calls it). She always wants to put on my chapstick and pitstick too. Silly girl. We love her kisses and big hugs and her sweet smile! We love our Princess Mia!

Partners in Crime

2010-12-14T10:43:00.003-07:00

So, this is what happens when your back is turned for 2 seconds! This is called "fun with mommy's make-up!" Waterproof mascara is hard to get off!

This is called "Fun with Asia's Nailpolish!" Jacob has quite the talent! What an amazing little artist we have!

And here's the budding little Picasso himself:
Side note: nailpolish is really hard to get out of ears...

Asia is 7!

2010-12-03T07:06:00.005-07:00

I can't believe my sweet princess Asia is 7 already! My how the time flies! She is turning into quite a little Takara as my mom and dad tell me. She's very strong-willed, stubborn, and has to do things her way or no way. (just like her mommy!) But she is also a very good helper, especially with our two youngest. She will even change diapers! She loves going to school and learning new things. She has to be the best at everything; whether it's having the neatest handwriting, or passing off all of her "mad minutes", or getting the most AR points. She's turning into quite the little perfectionist in some areas... not like me at all! (sarcasm intended!) But her favorite thing to do is play with her friends. She always wants to have friends over to play Barbies, or Polly Pockets, or to just goof around. She also loves to just snuggle too. We love our Asia!

So on her "real" birthday day, she wanted to have huckleberry pancakes and scrambled eggs for breakfast. She also got to have it in bed!
Then that day we took her out to Arctic Circle for lunch. Even Ethan and Daddy got to come. She had fun playing on the toys and eating her cheeseburger, fries, and kiddie cone. For dinner Asia ordered pepperoni pizza and ham and pineapple pizza. Then it was time to open presents. Lots of Polly Pockets, clothes, Barbies, and make-up:

Then on the Saturday after her birthday, she had a friend party. We went to a beauty school in town and they all got to have their hair and nails done. They all loved it! Here they all are with their funky nails: Anaya, Asia, Teja, Courtney, and Mara
And here's the back of their fancy hair:
Then it was cake time. I had to re-do the original cake since Asia thought it looked weird. Here's the first version. I had extra fondant that I didn't want to go to waste, so I made balls and put them on top. I told Asia they were fireworks. She didn't think so! Ha!
So here's the second version, which is a lot cuter!
Time to blow out the candles:
And eat the cake:
And a little playtime:
So much fun! Now onto the next November birthday...

Pumpkin Carvin' and Halloweenin'

2010-11-19T10:28:00.006-07:00

Still trying to catch up! So here we are on a beautiful sunny day at the end of October, carving our pumpkins outside! It was a long beautiful fall that we got to enjoy this year.

Here are the finished masterpieces:

Before we go trick or treating, I like to make a ghoulish dinner for the kids. This year we had 3 other families join in the festivities: the Lamberts, the Bennetts, and the Zundels. It was so fun! Here's the cookie salad dessert Rose made into a little graveyard:I made monster bones and dracula teeth soup (tortilla soup: tortillas for the bones and corn for the teeth), mummy dogs, and brain jello. No pics though, sorry. Here's Aidan and Ethan eating our yummy dinner:

Here are the kids after trick or treating; Batman, Princess, Mario, and Batgirl:

Jack in the Box (Mike) and Wendy (Me):
Princess Mia:

Batman Jacob:

Luigi (Baey) and Mario (Ethan):
A fun time had by all! Ethan wanted to get as much candy as he could so he could sell it to the dentist. He actually got over 5 pounds of candy so he got 12 whole dollars (2 bucks a pound)! I think that was a good idea! He's going to do that every year I think!

And since we went trick or treating on Saturday and Halloween was on a Sunday this year, we did our dinner in a pumpkin on the actual Halloween night (Sunday). Here she is. Aint she beautiful!

Pumpkin Pickin' and Corn Mazin'

2010-11-12T06:55:00.005-07:00

This is the first year that we were able to go and "pick" our pumpkins for carving. We bought some gift certificates for half off to this u-pick pumpkin place just south of town. I thought we were going to actually pick our pumpkins off the actual vine, but we get there and there are just pumpkins laid out in random piles all over. Kind of disappointing, but the kids still had fun picking their perfect pumpkin.

We brought along our little neighbor boy, Talon, if you were wondering who the new addition was in these pictures!

Jacob tackling the top of the kiddie straw maze:

Mia finding a quick way out of the maze:

Ethan getting the straw out of his shoes:

Mia just riding a tractor just her size:

Asia having fun in the maze:

That night we decided to go with some friends and go to the corn maze just outside of Shelley. Mike won these tickets from the radio station. We went out to dinner to Mrs. Powells and then it was off to the dust bowl. There was a thin layer of dust everywhere so the kids basically had a bath in dust the whole time. We started with the second hardest maze which was about 2 miles. The kids liked finding the different check points throughout the maze. Then we decided to do another shorter maze which turned into a longer maze because we got lost! Ha! The kids were pretty done after that one! I think their favorite thing was this little train ride:

Jacob could've rode this thing the whole time and been content:

Asia and Mia after their fun train ride:
Mia and Ethan after the train ride:

It was a pretty fun day with perfect weather! This is not usually the case the end of October in Idaho. But we enjoyed it while it lasted...

Randoms

2010-11-11T07:51:00.004-07:00

I just wanted to post some cute pics that I've taken over the last couple of months.

So, have you ever wanted the kids to do something creative without the mess? Well, how about painting with water? The kids LOVE to do this! They find things all around the yard to paint; stairs, play cars, rocks, banisters, etc. If they spill their water, no biggie. Just fill it up again. No mess, no fuss! Luv it!

One night, as I was checking on the kids before I went to bed, this is how we found Jacob. Comfy:
Just a cute pic of Jacob, hangin' out, watchin' some t.v.:We have some new neighbors that moved in across the street and they have a daughter named Mia. Crazy! They also have a son named Jake. It's quite the coincidence. Anyway, Mia is 13 and she loves to decorate cakes. So, one day she was decorating a cake for her friend's birthday and she asked Asia to come over and decorate a cake. This is her creation, fondant and everything:
And here's Asia playing soccer for her second time. She is a very fast runner when she wants to be, and can kick the ball pretty hard if she wants to, but it all has to be her idea! So if you tell her to do all of these things, she won't do it! HA! Needless to say, this will probably be her last year of playing soccer. She just didn't have that much fun playing. We still have to find a sport that she likes. Maybe basketball...Here are the kids trying out the vampire teeth while decorating for Halloween:
And Mia trying on the ninja costume:I think that's it for this post. Now on to the Halloween pics finally! (hopefully)

Fun Times

2010-10-26T06:58:00.004-06:00

So, the first day of school was August 30th. Asia and Ethan were not too excited for it! I guess it was such a fun summer that they didn't want it to end! Asia has Mrs. Roberts who Ethan had for first grade as well. She's one of those teachers who is pretty strict, but gets the kids to get their work done and they learn. But since Ethan already had her, he had to tell Asia all about how "mean" she is. So, maybe that's why she didn't want to go to school! Hmmm. Anyway, they're both doing really well. Asia is reading at a third grade level and she's already on plus-8's in her "mad minute". Ethan is a very smart boy, but he has trouble paying attention and listening. He gets everything right on his homework and tests, but he has to constantly be reminded to do a question he skipped over or do a whole back side of a test that he forgot to do. Hopefully this changes soon!

Here they are getting ready to leave for their first day:

The next week was Labor Day weekend. My parents and Naomi came down for a visit. We went to The Riot Zone with them because it was their $10 deal. You could go and do everything and anything for just $10 a person. It was so fun!

Jacob loved doing these cute kiddie paddle boat thingys. You have to paddle with your hands.

He got to ride this huge teeter-totter too. It has a bell at the top of this pole that you have to try and ring. It took Jacob a few tries and a bit of help from the attendant, but he finally rang the bell!

Ethan on the other side of the teeter-totter:

Here's what Ethan wanted to do the whole time; rock climb:
The go-karts were a fun thing to do also. Here's Mike rounding the corner:

Asia and my Mom ridin around. My Mom wanted to ride in a car all by herself so she could be faster! The 2 person cars are not fast enough for her! But Asia was too scared to drive one all by herself.Speedy Gonzales:

Small guy in a huge car:These smaller go-karts were more Asia's speed:
Ethan going with Asia to appease her. He thought these were too small and too slow!

Camping at Palisades

2010-10-22T15:13:00.007-06:00

It was nearing the end of summer and we hadn't gone camping yet. The kids had been bugging us all summer to go, and finally we found a weekend where we had no obligations! Yaaay! So a-camping we went. We knew that it could be a rainy weekend, but we were willing to brave it. We drove through rain on the way up, but there was no rain at our campsite. Phew! We started to set up camp and a few raindrops started to fall, but nothing major. Here's our lovely abode for the night:

Ethan couldn't wait to get started on building a fire:

A couple of pyros:

We got the fire just right and loaded our bellies with s'mores. Then it was off to bed. We brought the pack 'n play for Mia to sleep in and the other three just slept all together at one end of the tent. It worked out pretty well with only Mia and Jacob crying in the middle of the night and only one time each! Yaaaay! I can handle that.

I don't know what time it was, but the sun was just coming up (so around 5 or so) and we hear this downpour of downpours. Awesome! (sarcasm) It only lasted for about 15 minutes or so, but I was worried about how wet everyone would be when they woke up. Everyone stayed dry, thank goodness, but that was not the end to the moisture. We all got up, got dressed and started making the fire. As we were eating our breakfast, there was loud thunder and lightning everywhere. Then, it started to hail! Big marble-sized hail started pelting us in the head. We tried to just hide under the trees for shelter so we wouldn't have to go into the tent with our muddy shoes. That worked, for the most part, except for Jacob who got pelted pretty good in the head a few times! We survived! It felt like forever for the hail to stop, but I'm sure it was only a few minutes. Once that passed by, we had beautiful blue skies and warm weather. We finished up our breakfast and headed down to the reservoir to play in the water and hike.

I love pictures of people from behind. I think it's very nostalgic or something like that. Or I just like butts! So I took every opportunity to do this, as you will be able to tell: Then we just played in the water, skipping rocks and throwing big rocks into the water.

Then it was time to eat our lunch. Mmm nothin' better than a hot dog cooked on the open fire. Ok, maybe there is, but that's the best way to eat those nasty things!

Then it was time pack up and go home. We made it out just in time. While we were pulling out of the campground, it started to rain again. Another Phew! So, we took the family camping. Check that off the list! Now we should be good until next summer!

The Rexburg RUSH

2010-10-21T14:51:00.003-06:00

Mike and I decided to do another triathlon in August. It was nice because it was close and the weather was A LOT nicer than the triathlon we did in May. I was able to practice the bike and the run portion the week before the tri, but Mike had no idea what he was getting himself into! It was ok though, because he can do anything!

The race started at 8am, but we had to get there by 6 to get everything set up. Here we are at transition 1 where we go after we get done with the swim portion and hop on our bikes:

Our bikes are cheapies from Walmart, so they are very heavy and very slow. It was frustrating having people pass you when you know you could be going faster on a better bike! Grrr! But I don't want to spend thousands of dollars on a bike just yet. Mike and I just had to make up the time in the running portion. That's the easiest part for me. Although, this run course was a killer! We had to go trail running up a very steep dirt trail that killed my sprained ankle. But once we made it through that, it was all downhill from there, literally. It was perfect weather for a traithlon too. It felt so good to cross the finish line and complete something I never thought I could do! We had fun and are wondering what to do next year now...

Huckleberry Pickin'

2010-10-21T14:31:00.003-06:00

Last year we weren't able to pick huckleberries for some reason. So since we had ran out of them (sad sad day), it was imperative that we make it up there this year. My mom and dad were visiting so it was fun to take them with us and help us pick. Right when we got to the picking spot, it started to rain. Of course! But you know what they say about Idaho weather: If you don't like it, wait 5 minutes and it will change. So we just waited and the storm passed over us within 5 minutes. We picked until it was too dark and we couldn't see the berries anymore, and then we picked for just a bit more! It gets kind of addicting! When you find a good patch, you don't want to stop picking, since these berries are such a hot commodity. We called it quits, finally, and went home with about 4 quarts of berries. I jammed them with fresh garden raspberries, froze some to enjoy in pancakes and waffles and in ice cream, and ate some fresh with cereal and with ice cream. Yum Yum!
Good Times!

Jacob's Birthday in Boise

2010-10-21T11:11:00.005-06:00

So, Mike had to go to a "Kettle Bell" training in Boise, so we all decided to tag along. While he was in boring meetings all day, we got to hang out with the Bells. It happened to be Jacob's birthday, so we decided it would be fun if we all went to the Boise Zoo. It wouldn't be a true zoo trip if we didn't feed the goats:

We always have to ride the carousel too:

Jacob and Mia lookin' at some animals:

Checkin' out the murky slough that you can pay to ride a boat across:

Ridin' the cute little tiger:
After the zoo, it was naptime. So the babies took naps, the older kids watched a movie in Jason and Mandy's theater room (so cool), and the mommies made birthday cupcakes. After naps we went swimming in the nieghborhood pool (also soo cool!) and then got ready to go to dinner. Since there is a Chuck E Cheese in Boise and since that is Jacob's most favoritest place in the whole world, that is where we went to eat and play.

So first, scarf down some pizza so I can play:
Then get a big hug from Chuck himself:

Then off to play. Jacob was old enough this time to get his own tokens and just use them at his will. Mia liked to ride the little rides. Barney was one of her favorites:

Then it was time for cupcakes. Jacob couldn't wait to dig into them. But first, he had to blow out his candles:And then he was in heaven, eating his cupcake:

We love our little Jacob! He is such a cute little guy and so loving and loveable. He always says, "I love you Mom," or "Mom, you're my best friend, " without being prompted. When someone says sorry to him, he says, "Sanks for saying sorry" with his cute little lisp. He has the biggest, brownest eyes that make you melt when you look into them. He loves to read books, especially ones about nature and natural disasters. His favorite book right now is about hurricanes. He also loves Toy Story and the Cars movies. Whenever someone gets hurt or is crying, he is the first to go over and ask "What's wong?" and see if he can fix your problem. We are so grateful for our little Jacob and love him so much! Happy 3rd birthday buddy!

August Adventures

2010-10-20T14:55:00.004-06:00

I love August! I love the hot weather, the playing in the sprinkler, the swimming, the harvesting of the garden, and of course, the going back to school! Every August, Idaho Falls hosts the Roaring Youth Jam. We try to go to it every year because we have so much fun! They have awesome FREE things for the kids to do and fun, cool, FREE shows to watch on stage. The kids want to do everything and we try to get everything in. Here's Ethan trying to hula a huge hula hoop: Jacob making his clay creation:
Ethan and Asia making clay stuff:
Mia figuring out what to do with her clay:

Racing their homemade boats:

Painting the giant dragon:
It was all very fun, except for the part when Jacob got lost... I think it was the scariest moment of my life! I feel yucky right now just writing about it. We all took a break from the activities to take a potty break. We all finished up and started walking to the next activity. I went to get Jacob to sit him up to the table and he was nowhere to be found! I started to walk up and down the walkway where we were and he was gone! I started to panic because the river was right there, rushing along really fast and I figured he had drowned in the river trying to catch the ducks or something. So many nasty things were going through my head! It had only been about 2 or 3 minutes, but it seemed like hours! I finally talked to this woman at an information booth and she told me that they had found him, just wandering around aimlessly, trying to find us. Sooo scary! He was so scared too! I burst into tears when they brought him to me and then we left! That was enough adventure for me!

Another exciting thing that happened in August was I was able to get 2 braids in Mia's hair! She actually sat still after bribing her with treats and T.V.! Her hair is a lot different than Asia's. Asia's hair is very thick and started coming in a lot sooner than Mia's did. Mia still has a cute little baby mullet, so we do the best that we can with what we got!

More July Happenings

2010-10-20T14:15:00.004-06:00

So, I turned 32 this year. Yippee! (sarcasm) I try to say to myself that age is just a number or that I just get better with age. But let's face it, getting older is so not fun! My body isn't the same, my mind isn't the same, and life in general is not the same. I usually only feel this way on my actual bithday and then things just go on their merry way until my next birthday. This year the feelings are lingering. It might be because my ankle still hurts after spraining it over 5 months ago, or because I can't get rid of the belly fat from having my last kid (2 years ago), or maybe it's because I really need a vacation!! Something's gotta change, so tell me what I need to do to get out of this funk. In the meantime, the vacation planning is in full swing!
In other July news, our strawberries really took off this year. So much so that I was actually getting sick of picking them! We made a bunch of jam and ate a bunch with ice cream and cereal. They're my favorite summer fruit. I don't know what we'll do with them all next year. This is one of our first pickins':
Now, I just thought I would post some pics of one of our zoo trips. We love the zoo, especially the petting zoo part. This was Mia's first time petting and brushing the goats. It wasn't her favorite thing! The goats were all bigger than her and a bit intimidating I think:

And the last thing in July I want to blog about was Ethan's first pinewood derby. He was so excited to make it with his dad. It was a very fun experience for the both of them. Ethan planned out the design, helped carve out his design, spray painted it, and glued on his weights. He did a really great job!
His car won some and lost some. We actually found out, near the middle of the races, that his car went faster backwards! We must've weighted it wrong or something. So from that time on, he put his car on the starting line backwards and he won a bunch more races!

Yamada Family Reunion 2010

2010-10-06T14:10:00.007-06:00

So, we had a Yamada family reunion this past summer with all of my dad's siblings and their kids. It was so fun to see people that I hadn't seen for a long time and some people that I hadn't even met. The first day we drove to Spokane and spent the night with Mike's sister's brother-in-law. Here are the kids sportin their super cool sunglasses. They were pretty good for the whole drive. Thanks goodness for DVD players!

The next day we drove the rest of the way to Harrison Hot Springs in British Columbia. The drive was beautiful! Everything was so green and fresh! The weather was pretty good almost the entire time too. There was a lake and beach area just outside our hotel, so we spent a whole day there playing in the water and catching minnows:

See my dead minnow!

The rest of the time was spent lounging in and by our hotel pool, eating wonderful food, and visiting with amazing people. It was a very fun, relaxing vacation for the most part.
Here's my whole family minus my sisters Naomi and Christina. We missed them!

Here's a teeny picture of the whole Yamada clan. You can't really make-out who anyone is, but this is about how many people were at the reunion!

On our way back home we decided to spend a night with my friend Kamille and her family. It was nice to catch up on the good ole days with her. She has an amazing memory and helps me remember things about our childhood that I have either forgotten or have buried down deap! Ha Ha! She has a wonderful family and it was so nice of her to have us stay the night. Especially being 8 or so months pregnant! Thank you so much!

Next it was off to Seattle to spend the day. We checked out the Space Needle and said instead of all of us going to the top, we'd spend our money on the cheap carnival rides next to it! I think the kids had more fun doing that anyway.

We had to spend a little bit of time in downtown Seattle. I love it there! My fave is Pike's Place. I just love all the fresh stuff you can buy there everyday. Nothin like that around here. We like this Japanese restaurant down by the market. It's always good and not very expensive (for Japanese food anyway). And we always have to buy something from the bakery there at Pikes Place. Sooo yummy! Here we are, enjoying our pastries with all of the homeless people drooling over them!
That was our big family trip for the summer. Hopefully we can do something like that again next year!

4th of July

2010-09-29T06:42:00.003-06:00

We went to the parade, played with friends at the river, and went to the fireworks. I forgot to bring my camera to the parade, of course, so I took pics with my phone. But I have no idea how to get them off of there... So maybe I'll figure it out later and post those next year sometime!

Here's Asia waiting for the fireworks to start:

Jacob waiting patiently:

Having fun in the sand:

Chillaxin':
I was looking for a picture of Ethan, and then remembered he was in Lethbridge. We missed him.

It was a fun, relaxing day, except for the drive home after the fireworks! We always think we can be smarter than everyone else and find the quickest way home, but it still took us an hour to get home. Thank goodness for the DVD player in the van... We couldn't have made it without you!

June Happenings

2010-09-23T06:49:00.003-06:00

This past June, Asia participated in t-ball again. It was quite an eventful t-ball season. I think it was her second or third game when it happened. Her team was practicing before the big game. One person stood at the tee, one person was assigned to put the ball on the tee, and the other team members shagged the ball. Well, it was Asia's turn to put the ball on the tee and just as the person up to bat was swinging the bat back to get ready to hit the ball off the tee, Asia was there trying to put the ball on the tee. The batter didn't see her and her bat hit Asia square in the mouth! She had two big fat lips and her front permanent tooth got chipped right off. In all the rushing to figure out what to do and who to go see (her dentist was out of town), we forgot to take a picture. But, now she has a fake tip on her front right tooth. She was very brave and finished out the season, but still was a bit wary of going near the tee! Here she is at the end of the season with her medal and fake tooth:
My Mom turned 60 on June 22, so we decided to come up to Lethbridge and surprise her. My sister was having a big party for her so we wanted to come to that with her not knowing. She figured we wouldn't be able to come on short notice. But we made the trip up. Turns out my mom already figured it out that we were coming. But it was a fun, quick trip anyway. Again, not very many pictures. Too busy I guess.

We decided to leave Ethan up there to hang with his aunts, uncle and grandma and grandpa for 3 whole weeks! We figured he was old enough now and I wanted him to be able to spend time with the people we love the most and don't get to see nearly enough. It was a long time being without Ethan! He is actually quite the little helper around here. It made me appreciate him more and I think he realized that he missed and loved us too. Here is the shot of him before we left to go back to Idaho; shaggy hair and everything: (Cynthia took him to get his hair cut later)
Here's Mia blowing on Cynthia's back door. She thought it was hilarious and so did we!

Best Buddies

2010-09-23T06:35:00.003-06:00

Jacob and Mia are only about 15 months apart. They can always be found playing together. I think it's mostly because Mia likes to follow everyone around and be part of the action. And since Ethan and Asia are so much older, the two babies end of being together most of the time. For the most part, they get along pretty well. Jacob is kind of Mia's protector. It's pretty cute. So here are some cute shots of the Little Buddies:

Eating fresh beans by the fence:

Mmmm, more beans from the garden. And I promise I didn't pose these two. They were sitting this way in all of these pictures with no prompts from me.

Throwing rocks in Leigh Lake:

Enjoying ice cream together. Love Jacob's face!

I hope they can be best friends and take care of each other for a long time to come.

Experimenting

2010-09-23T06:27:00.003-06:00

The first day of sumer vacation, Ethan was already saying, "I'm bored!" Man, it was going to be a looooong summer! So, I told him to think of some experiments he could do. He wanted to see what would happen to food if we left it out of the fridge for a while. This is the before shot:

And here's the after. Ethan decided to add a raspberry and a couple of carrots. Gross! We'll see what other ideas he comes up with this summer!

Rigby Triathlon

2010-08-31T06:21:00.004-06:00

So, the last Saturday in May, Mike and I did the Rigby triathlon. It was our first tri, so we had no idea what we were doing! We trained for the last couple of months and swam at the Apple a few times, but we were not prepared for what was to come! That morning I think it maybe got up to 40 degrees! It was raining the whole time and even snowed a bit! The Rigby Lake barely had any water in it and it was so cold we couldn't even put our heads in the water! The good thing about it is we could sometimes touch the ground in the lake. That made me not so nervous about drowning! The bad thing about it was the water was so cold, I couldn't feel my extremities until the whole race was over! It was so hard to come out of the water and transition to biking because I couldn't feel my hands and feet! It took me waaaay too long in T1 and it was so frustrating! But we both had some pretty good times and loved the feeling of actually finishing and passing people. I don't know about doing this one next year though. It was just too dang cold!

Here's Mike getting his bike ready in Transition 1:

Here's Mike before in his wetsuit. Very flattering!And me. Brrrr!

Kindergarten Graduation!

2010-08-30T06:48:00.003-06:00

Asia "graduated" from kindergarten last May! Woohoo! What an accomplishment! Mrs. Christensen was a wonderful, loving teacher. You could tell she loved all of her kindergarteners. The graduation ceremony was pretty cute with fun little songs, cute grad caps and they all wore shirts that said "First Grade Here I Come!" Too cute!Here's her cute little friend Courtney.
Courtney is actually one month older than Asia and is pretty tall. Asia is VERY tall!

And here they are; the three musketeers. Anaya, Asia, and Courtney:
First Grade, Here We Come!

Cheer Camp- May 2010!

2010-08-25T07:40:00.003-06:00

Asia got to go to Cheer Camp again at Hillcrest High School. She really likes it and I think it's good for her to do these kinds of things to get rid of her shyness. She's still pretty shy when it comes to performing in front of people though. Here she is before her performance. Not too sure about this!
Here's she is, cheering it up. The girls next to her are the same age! Why is she cheering? She needs to be playing basketball and volleyball with all that height!

May 15, 2010 events

2010-08-25T07:22:00.004-06:00

So, Mike and I ran a 10K a week after we got back from our cruise. It was the longest distance we had ever ran and it may be the longest distance I will EVER run! Ha! Here we are just before the race:

And here we are after. I finished it in 52 minutes I think. Mike was faster, of course, and finished in 40-something minutes.

Then, that night was Asia's dance recital at the Civic Auditorium. She danced at Dance Depot this year and I was really impressed with what she learned in the year. She was a cute little monster for her dance and got to be in 2 numbers.

Sorry this one's so blurry, but here she is being "scary":

Here's the whole dance crew at the finale:
And Asia and her flowers and a present from her dance teacher, Britnie:
Asia loves to dance and can't wait for next year!

Almost Home!

2010-08-25T06:56:00.004-06:00

We stopped in Grand Cayman on our last port day. We just decided to spend the day on the beach. So, whenever we had to wait for something or drive somewhere on this cruise, I would say, "We're only ___ minutes to paradise!" And whaddya know. I got a picture of a sign that said just that! I guess you had to be there, but it was funny at the time...Here I am, waiting for my very expensive hamburger and sipping on a nonrefillable drink that was half filled with ice! That bugged me since we could have anything we wanted for "free" back at the ship.
And one last picture of us and the boat:

Our last formal night:

Our last little towel animal:
The next day was just a day at sea. It was also our 11th anniversary. Here's Jason and Mandy at our last dinner together:
We got to have our own little anniversary sundae and got sung to, of course, in a very thick east Asian accent. Love it!
The next day we arrived in Miami and spent the day at the South Beach. Here we are, soaking up one last bit of sun before we had to go home to winter.
Can't wait to plan another one! Who wants to go?

More Scuba Fun and Stuff

2010-08-24T07:41:00.005-06:00

Our next port day we went to Roatan and went scuba diving again. This time our friends took the camera and got some sweet pics.

Here I am, hanging out on the scuba boat:
Here's Mike above this long cylinder thingy:

You might not be able to see it, but it's a green eel:

I thought this pic was cool of Mandy and I with the open ocean all around us. Who knows what is out there...

Our instructor said we did so well on our first dive so he took us to some cool caverns and walls on our second dive. Here's one of the walls we went through:

Here's Jason, Mandy, Me and Mike:

Mandy under a school of fish:

A lobster peeking out of the rock:

After diving, we had a bit of time to tour the resort that we were at. It was very nice with a swimming pool, hot tub, restaurant, and a private beach. Here's my yacht we came in from the cruise ship on:

The cool swimming pool:

Our yummy lunch at the resort:

Getting ready to get back on the ship:

Cute chicas:

And getting ready to sing some karaoke:

2010-08-12T07:43:00.002-06:00

So, our next port day was in Belize and we went scuba diving there. Awesome! Here we are loading up the boat with all of our gear:

Getting ready to go down, down, down:
Now, we had just bought an underwater camera case that was supposed to be good to 100 feet. It was pretty inexpensive, but it said it was supposed to work. The guy that was helping us get loaded kind of laughed at it and said, "good luck with that!" That wasn't very encouraging! So, we put our camera in it, Mike went down about 8 feet and it just scrunched up and the camera wouldn't even turn on! Lame-ola! And we were relying on that to take some cool pics! Oh well. We got some sweet ones in Roatan.

After our 2 dives, we stopped at this private island and relaxed on the beach for a bit. It had a trampoline on the water! Cool.

Then we went back to the boat and went on with our evening of dinner, show, karaoke, midnight pizza run, and of course, a bit a fro-yo to grease up around the edges of the tummy!

May Cruise

2010-07-31T07:52:00.007-06:00

Mike and I were able to go on another cruise in May for our 11th anniversary! My mom and sister, Naomi, were able to come down and watch our kids for the week. It's so nice to have them come and let us leave! It was a great cruise, as usual. The weather was a welcome break from the crap that we were getting back at home. It was in the 90's at every port and beautiful!

Here we are at the muster drill. Always a bunch of fun!
Here's the boat just leaving the port of Miami with the Miami skyline in the background:
We went with Jason and Mandy Bell this time. We all scuba certified together and couldn't wait to get back down to see the fish:
Our first of many towel animals. This one is a seal I guess!

Mandy wanted us to play a little game on this trip. We were to find people that were "interesting" and take a picture of them. The person who got the picture of the most "interesting" person won. We saw this guy on deck the first day and couldn't resist a picture! Check out the supreme, curly mullet, white ankle socks, jean cutoffs, blue tank top, and wild and crazy tats! I'd say that was picture worthy! There will be more of him to come. You just wait!

Here's another beauty. This was that night at karaoke. She had on this flowery, shorty jumper thingy with black nylons. It wasn't very flattering at all! It made me want to give her a makeover! Please don't think I'm this shallow, mean person! This was actually a fun game and you know you guys do the same thing. You just maybe don't take pictures! She did have an AMAZING voice and did dress better the next nights!

Anyway, the next day was a sea day to get us all the way down to Cozumel. I didn't take any pics that day. We just layed around on the decks all day, eating food and making fun of people (obviously)!

The next day we went to Cozumel and took a ferry into Playa Del Carmen to see the ruins of Tulum.
Here we are on the ferry. It was nice and air conditioned so we had no "mishaps!"
Our tour bus stoppped at this tourist trap for a "potty break" which was really a "buy our crap that we say is authentic but really isn't" stop!
We did, however, get to meet our friendly mullet man again! What a coincidence!

Beautiful!

And here he is lighting up a cigarette. Perfect!

Some super cute chicas:

When we finally got to the ruins, we saw these cute little iguanas all over the place:

Here are some of the bigger ruins:

We didn't get to walk up the steps or go inside or even touch the ruins, which was kinda lame. I guess it was to preserve them or whatever! They were still pretty cool to look at and learn about.

These ruins bordered the ocean. So when we were finished touring the ruins, we got to go down to the beautiful beach.

The staircase down to the beach:

Picture of a map of the ruins:

Oh how I miss that beautiful water!

The Carnival Ecstacy was there as well:

And of course, a friendly monkey waiting for us when we got back:

More still to come! I know you can't hardly wait...!

The Borat Suit

2010-07-30T11:45:00.004-06:00

So, just only two weeks after our snow day, we had swimsuit weather! What a welcome change to the long, depressing winter!

And who can resist a smile when you look at these sweet cheeks! Miniature Borat!

Spirit Week

2010-07-30T11:18:00.003-06:00

This spring's spirit week was pretty fun! Asia, however, decided not to play along. She's always worried about people laughing at her if she dresses funny. I told her they'd be laughing with her, not at her, and that there would be other kids dressed up. She didn't care. Maybe she'll be more brave next year!
Ethan, on the other hand, loves dressing up! Here he is for crazy sock day:

Nerd day:

And "pick a favorite decade" day. He/we chose the "50's":

Dove-tailed hair and high waters- perfect!
They had donuts with dad, but dad took the camera and forgot to get a picture. Oh well. It was a pretty fun week. I wonder what they'll come up with for next year!

Snow in April (and hopefully the last)

2010-07-30T11:07:00.003-06:00

Usually when you go back to school after Spring Break, you expect to have Spring, right?! Well, not so much this year! We actually had a snow day in April! So, I decided to take the kids on one last sledding trip (hopefully the last!)

Doesn't Asia look like she has a GINORMOUS head here!? Or Mia just looks teeny tiny!

Mia loved to go down the hill all by herself.

So did Jacob:

My little "stay-puff marshmallow" baby!

Okay. Hopefully that was it for snow. (I think it was, can't remember!) Ha Ha!

Easter?!

2010-07-30T10:26:00.006-06:00

Yep, still trying to catch up! The Saturday before Easter is when the "Easter Bunny" usually comes to our house, but we were in Las Vegas and the "bunny" didn't want to cart all the stuff from Idaho Falls. So, we just did the baskets on Sunday this year.

It worked out alright since it was General Conference and we didn't have to go to church and leave the beloved baskets!

Asia and Ethan got dressed up for church anyway:

After conference, we all went over to Mike's mom and dad's for an Easter egg hunt. Since Mike's mom is a retired elementary school teacher, everything is very organized! The kids have their own color and size of egg, they each have the same amount of eggs, and they're all hidden at the height that each kid would be able to find them at! Makes things work like clockwork!

Here's Ethan on the hunt:

Oooo, so excited!

Jacob helping Mia with her eggs:

"I finally found all of mine!"

Counting his wares:

Mmmm chocolate!:

I have just as much fun as the kids, trying to find eggs!

What a dork! HA HA!

It was nice to have a relaxing, peaceful Easter. It was also nice to be able to reflect on our Savior and his sacrifice for us. What better way than to spend the day with the family we love the best! Happy Easter!

Where Does the Time Go?

2010-07-30T07:50:00.009-06:00

So, here's my attempt at trying to catch up on this whole blogging thing. I have to go clear back to April so bear with me. We'll see how far we get!

I need to post some funny pics of the wax museum that we went to in Las Vegas for spring break. So here goes:Here's Oprah. The kids didn't even know who she was!

My friends, Brad and Angie!
Can you tell who these people are? One's not so very liked right now!
J-lo: When you touch her iconic butt, she blushes! So here's Asia gonna touch "the butt."Priya and Asia with Heff. Asia was so funny! She sat down, put the bunny ears on Heff, and picked up the champagne! She wanted to pose with all of the statues. We got a bunch of pics of just her, but I'll just show ya the good ones.

Asia and Britney:

Asia and Daniel Craig. Mmmm, love those piercing blue eyes! Asia is hugging his arm like he's her dad or something!

Asia and Cameron.

Me and Julia:

Asia wanted to pose just like the actors:

Ethan, about to dunk it!

Tiger and his girls!

Evel Knievel:

Good ole Lenny!

Mike being a wax sculpture:

Hamming it up with Louie:

Asia and Abe. We could've gotten a pic with Obama, but we declined! That one you had to pay for! How ironic!

We were also able to go to the children's museum in Las Vegas. It was sooo fun! I wish we had a children's museum here. We could've spent the whole vacation there and the kids would've loved it!

Mia's favorite thing was this ball blower thing:

Asia's symmetrical masterpiece:

Ethan the construction worker:

Ethan the soccer goalie. He was in front of this green screen and trying to deflect balls. It was pretty cool:

Jacob at the ball blower thingy:

Checkout at the grocery store:

This is what 1 million pennies looks like. This one's for you Mariko!

Vegas Part Deux

2010-04-23T06:59:00.011-06:00

The next day we drove to Red Rock Canyon and decided to do a little hiking and exploring. It was the perfect day to go for a hike. The kids love to explore nature and see what new things they can discover.

Here we are, exploring the lizard in the Nature Center:

Hiking pretty high up the mountain:Just some fun pictures on this cool little foot bridge:

There was this cool little nature hike to a waterfall that we decided to do. Jacob is so into waterfalls and fountains that he couldn't wait to get there. He walked the whole way which was about a mile or so. Here we are behind the waterfall: It was just a tiny little waterfall. We came at a great time of year because the waterfall is not there towards the end of summer. This is just the melting snow coming down from the top of the mountain. Once the snow is all melted, then no more waterfall.

Here's Mia and Daddy:

It was a pretty fun day. It was starting to get pretty warm so then we went back to our hotel and swam. The kids loved to get in the big bathtub after going swimming every day:

That evening we decided to check out the volcano at the Mirage and, of course, the fountains at the Bellagio. This is the volcano show:They were working on it the last time we were here, so it was fun to finally see it. It was very cool (or very hot, I should say!) and the kids really enjoyed that. Then it was on to the fountains. They are always a good show. Jacob wanted to just stay there and watch them all night!

Then it was off to bed. The next day we went to the Ethel M. Chocolate Factory. We were so excited to see Willie Wonka and the Oompa Loompas, but alas, there were none to be found! It was kinda lame because we got there right when they were starting their lunch break, so nothing cool was going on. We got a free sample and then had to buy some sweet little morsels for ourselves. They were yummy! Priya even said it was as good as the German chocolate back home. Here's Mia enjoying a chocolate gummy worm:

Mmmmm, the evidence is all over his face!They had a cactus garden that we explored:

Then it was off to Chuck E. Cheese for dinner. This was our first time going to such a wonderous kids' heaven! The kids wanted to stay there all night! Even today, Jacob says he wants to go to Chuck E. Cheeses'! Here he is on his favorite ride. It was a big monster truck that moved all around. It was Mia's least favorite!

Mmmmm pizza!

Mia got to have her very own pop. She thought that was the greatest!

After playing a billion games and earning a billion tickets, Ethan was ready to redeem his tickets and get...... a package of 99 cent face paints! It's crazy what little things you can get with a billion tickets! So he decided to paint everyones' faces and be scary monsters.

And lastly, this is the game that Ethan and his daddy liked the most. I can't remember what it was called, but you basically just had to shoot the bad guys. Pretty intense!

Ok, I think I'll be able to finish our vacation with just one more post, hopefully! So much to write about still, but I've been working on this post all day and now it's time for bed. Later!

Vegas Baby, Ya!

2010-04-17T23:20:00.008-06:00

For spring break we decided to get out of cold Idaho and head south to Las Vegas for some much needed warmth and sunshine. I guess it snowed here most of the time we were gone so it was a good week to be away. We enjoyed temps in the 70's and 80's while we were in Vegas! It was awesome! It feels like we have had the longest winter EVER around here! Next year we have to go somewhere warm again. Hmmmm, I feel a cruise coming on...

Anyway, we left for Vegas Saturday morning and got there about 8ish. We got to take our neighbors' exchange student, Priya with us. She's from Germany, but she's Indian. She can speak Indian, German, and English very fluently. She's so smart and such a wonderful girl. She wanted to go to Las Vegas so bad so she got to come with us. In exchange she was willing to babysit for us. I think it was a pretty good deal! Plus, she's very fun to hang out with!

The drive wasn't too bad with the kids. Ethan, Asia, and Jacob like to watch movies so they were very good the whole way, just glued to the movie. Mia, on the other hand, is not such a good traveller and developed this high-pitched, nails on chalkboard, want to pull your hair out scream that drove everyone NUTS! She only did this a few times, but man, it was a few times too many!

We tried to stop every 2 hours or so to stretch our legs, go potty, and take care of the "numb bumb." But we had to get going to make the John Mayer concert. I have never been to a "real" concert before with someone famous. Sure, I saw Donny Osmond in Rexburg a few years ago and even touched his hand, but come on. John Mayer was amazing! So cute and cool. I don't know if you've ever seen him perform, but it is quite comical the way his face becomes distorted when he tries to hit certain notes or he wants to tweak a note. I'm sure it's on youtube somewhere. You should check it out, it's quite comical! We had some killer seats too, given to us because of the "nowhere to park" situation. Note to self: NEVER try and drive on Las Vegas Boulevard on a Saturday night and NEVER try and park anywhere. We seriously either should've taken a taxi or even just walked. We would've been there sooner and would not have had the headache of driving 2 miles an hour and stopping every 2 feet! It's so crazy how busy it is there ALL OF THE TIME!!

Anyway, here are some shots we took of John:

See his funny face:

The next day we decided to ride on a train. It's the track that carried supplies and materials from Boulder City to the Hoover Dam. The kids thought it was pretty cool to ride on a train.

Here's Asia and Mia waiting to board the train:

The whole fam damily:

Waiting for the train to get moving:

Trying on the conductor's hat:

After the train ride we went and looked at all of the older steam engines in the yard. Jacob kept calling this one Thomas and he wanted to ride it. He was so frustrated that it didn't move or do anything.

Then we had a little picnic lunch in the sunshine and played on a dirt hill chasing lizards:

It was getting so hot there that we decided it was time to go back to our hotel and go swimming.

It was a really nice, big pool with a couple of shallow ends for Jacob and Mia to play in and it even had a little sandy beach area. Too bad it closed at 6 everyday though. I guess they don't want you swimming at night, they want you gambling and drinking and spending money. Oh well. We just found other things to do like watch movies on the home theatre system in our room! Our room was awesome! We stayed at the Planet Holleywood/Westgate towers, right on the strip. I didn't get any pictures of it, but I think Priya did. I need to get some from her. She wanted to make it her own little apartment. It was a suite so it had one bedroom with a jetted hot tub in it, a full kitchen, and windows from floor to ceiling with awesome views of the strip and the mountains. It was fun to stay there. I'll post more later. Right now it's time for beddy bye!

St. Patrick's Day, 5K, and Rocket Derby, Oh My!

2010-04-14T06:49:00.008-06:00

Lots to catch up on once again! I love writing about the things that happen in our family, but I hate finding the time to do it! So, here we go again; a monster post.

First of all, we had a fun time celebrating St. Patrick's Day. The kids didn't want to wear all green shirts, just shirts that had a little bit of green on them so their friends would have to search for the green. Silly kids. So we started the day off with green pancakes, green eggs, and green milk. YUMMY!

Then I made corned beef and cabbage for the first time. It actually turned out super yummy! The kids didn't like the cabbage very much, but at least they tried it. This may have to become a tradition in our family, except I'll have to find a new cabbage recipe.

Then we made cute little leprechaun hats for dessert. So fun! They started out like this:

and ended up like this:

The kids had fun decorating their little hats and delivering them to our neighbors.

Now onto my first 5k. My friend, Jill, decided it would be a fun thing to sign us up to run a 10k in May. So I thought that I would like to at least run a 5k first, just to see if I could even do it and to see if I liked it. It turned out to be very fun and I ran it in 24 minutes! I just kept trying to beat the person in front of me until I was almost at the front of the line.

Here's me and another friend, Janiece before the race:

Jill and I before the race:

And just me, getting a bit nervous:

It was pretty chilly that morning, but it was nice when we got started running and getting sweaty! Here I am coming in at the finish line. It doesn't even look like I'm running! Slacker!

I made it! I'm such a dork!

Here comes Jill:

Jill and I being dorks:

Number 37 and number 56 baby!

It was pretty fun! Now I have to see how I do in the 10k coming up...

Rocket Derby

This year our ward did a rocket derby. I guess our ward hasn't done one of these in a while so things were a bit rusty. Ethan got his packet of stuff about 2 months before the race and he couldn't wait to get started on it. He designed, shaped and painted the rocket so he was pretty proud of it.

He also got to post the colors for the first time at pack meeting.

Then it was time for the races:

It was quite the contraption. Ethan's rocket didn't do so well. He didn't win any races. I think it was because he didn't wind up his propeller enough. Here's his disappointed face :(

So for his last race, I decided to help him and wind it up for him. I guess I wound it up too much because the whole thing broke! I guess I don't know my own strength! Oh well. At least we got astronaut pudding for dessert! Here's Jacob enjoying that part:

Mmmm good stuff! We're still trying to get into this scouting thing. Ethan has already lost his wolf book and I have no idea what I'm doing! I hope we get the hang of it before he gets his Eagle! (if we make it that far...) :)

Random Cuteness

2010-03-23T06:54:00.006-06:00

I was just looking at some pictures and noticed I hadn't posted some things on here. So this is mostly for the people who don't get to see us very often. :(

Here's Jacob wanting to be just like daddy:

Free skating lessons at Tautphus Park:

Who knew you could have so much fun on a ladder! :

Jacob in his big boy bed. He looks like he needs a "bigger" boy bed! :)Jacob and his Batman kick. He had to be Batman everyday. And his Batman wings had to be over his "real" arms. He'd come to me every minute it seemed like, to fix his wings. Look at those big brown eyes.This is a favorite thing to do in our house; line up all of the chairs and stools and play choo-choo train.

One of my young women and our favorite babysitter made these adorable little headbands for my girls. She is so talented!Here's Mia's new face. We ask her to make a funny face and this is what she does:Look familiar Mom?Asia wanted me to take a picture of her new hat and flower.

Last one. Mia couldn't stay awake to finish her lunch. This is a beautiful shot of her baby mullet too. Love it!!

Another One Bites the Dust

2010-03-18T07:19:00.004-06:00

The tooth fairy is SERIOUSLY gonna have to take out a loan to keep up with the teeth that have been falling out all over the place here! This time it was Ethan's turn. I guess he just wants to keep up with his little sister. After all, she is younger than him. He doesn't like that she's almost taller than him, she has lost more teeth, and her feet are bigger than his! He'll catch up eventually!

Anyway, Ethan had this snaggle tooth for the longest time. It's even sticking out in his school pictures! So hick looking!

So I told him if it hadn't fallen out in 3 more days, that I would have to pull it out. He HATES having his teeth pulled, so he would frantically wiggle it, hoping it would pop out on its own. But to no avail. I love pulling teeth out! I should've been a dentist! Asia lets me pull hers' out without a fuss, but Ethan had such a fit about it! I told him that if I can't get it out in 3 tries, then we would leave it alone. I finally got it in the third try, after he pulled sharply away the first 2 tries. Finally, no more snaggle tooth! And the tooth fairy had to cough up fifty more cents. Geesh!

Valentine's Day

2010-03-11T07:05:00.005-07:00

Our Valentine festivities started with making Valentine mail boxes. Ethan's teacher wanted them to make a mailbox for their class party, so we took a brown paper grocery bag and pimped it all out with paper doilies and heart stickers. Jacob and Asia wanted to make one as well.
A fun little project.

Then it was Valentine cookie making time. Always a mess and always a fun time.
So, since Valentine's Day was on Sunday, Mike and I went out on Saturday. We went to see Avatar and then went to dinner to Jalisco's. Then we did a bit of shopping and then home. Another uneventful V-day. Not a big fan of Valentine's Day if you can't tell. Just another one of those holidays that is just an excuse to go out and buy something superficial to tell someone that you love them. You should feel loved all of the time anyway, right...? I don't need my man to buy me some big expensive box of chocolates and a huge bouquet of roses, just to show that he loves me. I just need him. :) Cheesy, I know.

Anyway, on the actual Valentine's Day we made our own heart-shaped pizzas. I bought the kids their own little box of chocolates and some new red clothes I got on sale and couldn't wait to give them.

And of course, the Valentine hair-do. Too bad Mia's hair isn't quite long enough to do this. (sarcasm). I'm already dreading the day when I'll have to do 2 hair-do's everyday.

These pictures were the next day so it's kinda scraggly! Oh well, at least the do lasted more than one day right. BONUS!

The Broke Tooth Fairy!

2010-03-11T06:49:00.004-07:00

Asia has been losing teeth by the mouthful lately! All 4 of her top, front teeth have been loose for quite a while. So she let me pull her second tooth out. There's a whole 50 cents from the tooth fairy. Then she wanted her left front tooth out so I pulled that one a few days later. 50 more cents. Then, just the next day, she decided it was time for the other front tooth to come out. Another 50 cents! At this rate, the tooth fairy might have to take out a loan! And I may have to chew Asia's food for her for a little while! HA! What a cute toothless grin!

Ethan's Baptism

2010-03-05T06:52:00.005-07:00

Well, Ethan had to wait almost a whole month to get baptized because his birthday was just 2 days after the stake baptisms in January. He couldn't wait! He would ask me almost everyday if he could just get baptized. He was 8 already, after all! I said he should wait until February so all of the family could be there.

It was a wonderful, busy, spiritual, amazing day. My WHOLE family was able to come and stay with us and attend Ethan's baptism. Mike's WHOLE family was able to attend the baptism as well. That made it such a special day for Ethan. It was so great to have so much love and support there for him. So many other friends came too. What an awesome day!

One cute little story about Ethan's baptism. Mike was sitting on the front row with Ethan and all of the other children that were going to be baptized. ( there were 8 total!) Just before Mike and I were to sing our song, Ethan turned to Mike and said, "Do you have a hanky daddy? I think I'm feeling the spirit." And Mike looks at him and Ethan has tears streaming down his face! What a sweet little boy. That, of course, made Mike all emotional right before we had to sing our song. We barely got through the song, but it still turned out quite nice. It at least brought the spirit in I think!

Another funny story. I put Mike in charge of getting all of Ethan's gear for before, during, and after his baptism, including the changes of clothing, etc. He also had to get all of his own change of clothes. Since this was our first child to be baptized, he forgot a few things! He almost forgot his tie until I reminded him. I should've went through a checklist for Ethan's things because not only did he forget towels for the both of them, he forgot to bring a white shirt for Ethan to wear with his new suit after his baptism! Mike was trying to figure out what to do. He thought maybe he could just go without a shirt, but that looked pretty naked. It would take too long to go home and get one, so Mike decided to fashion a sort of cravat out of his white tie! (I think that's what it's called) Anyway, it worked out ok and he at least had something covering up his chest for the confirmation and pictures later. Fun things to remember.

We didn't get a picture of Mike's whole family. Another time I guess. Thanks to everyone who was able to come and support us. It truly was a terrific day. I'm so proud that Ethan chose to be baptized and to become a member of His church. He's turning into a wonderful little man!

Ethan's Date

2010-02-22T06:52:00.005-07:00

The weekend after Ethan's birthday, Mike and I took Ethan out for his special date with just mommy and daddy. He chose to go ice skating. So we grabbed our skates and headed to Tautphus Park. When public skating was over, Ethan still wanted to skate, so we went over to the outdoor rink by the hospital. There was a lot of this:and this:and some more of this:But he always had a smile on his face and just kept on trying and trying:Pretty soon he'll be as good as his momma!

Yep, I still got it! Ha Ha!

After we went skating we were famished. Ethan chose to go to Wingers again for dinner. He wanted to go there last year. So he ordered the same thing; penne alfredo and chicken noodle soup (his favorite.)

And then the servers came over and brought him an ice cream sundae and even sang Happy Birthday to him! He was a little bit embarassed!Ethan is a very smart little man. He's becoming quite the little bookworm. He has recently finished the first two books in the Wimpy Kid book series and is now cruising through the Magic Tree House series at school. In fact, his teacher has to repeatedly tell him to put his books away because they are moving onto something else! It's become a bit of a problem for him at school, but I'd rather he get in trouble for that than for other things! He loves to play his DS and he loves to conduct experiments and explore the world around him. He enjoys building things with K'nex, Bend-a-roos, Legos, and pretty much anything he can find. He is enjoying playing basketball and even makes a few baskets sometimes. His forte is defense though. It's funny to watch him play and defend the poor boy on the opposite team! He has his game face on and he never even lets the guy move, let alone get the ball! Pretty funny! We love our Ethan and he has become quite a responsible, loving older brother. Now onto the baptism post! Yaaaaay! Finally getting caught up feels good! :)

Ethan's Birthday!

2010-02-19T07:03:00.006-07:00

Ethan turned the big 0-8 last month! I can't believe I have an 8-year old! Crazy! He got to have a friend party this year so I let him invite 6 of his closest friends. I let them decide what they wanted to do and when. We had the party after school so they decided to play the wii for a bit, then open presents, and then have cake. That took a total of 30-40 minutes! Here's the cake Ethan wanted. Bakugan:Playing the wii Star Wars:Opening presents:The whole gang:Cake time:

Then it was time to bust open this little guy:The aftermath, trying to grab everything in sight!:

I think the kids had a lot of fun. It was cute when Ethan opened his presents, it was like everything he opened was his absolute favoritest thing in the whole world and said, "Thanks guys, this is so awesome!" Next, Ethan's date with the parents. So fun!

Christmas!!!!

2010-02-15T07:15:00.009-07:00

I know, I know. I've taken quite a break from blogging. I guess there are a few more important things to do in my life right now besides blogging! Imagine that! But I need to document stuff before I forget about them, especially our Christmas events.

We went over to the Taylor Grandparents' house and got to make a huge gingerbread house. It was so much fun and the kids loved it. I should say Mike loved it!! He was very meticulous and had to have everything just so! It was cute!

The finished masterpiece:

Christmas was quite the whirlwind, trying to fit everything in. Next year I think we'll make it a little more low-key and not travel so much. The kids remember the little things, right? Well, we tried a new tradition this year and read a Christmas book every night for the last 12 days of Christmas. I wanted to start on the 1st of December, but I only had 12 books! I'll have to start collecting more through the year for next year. The kids really enjoyed that. We would read at night by the Christmas tree. It was so peaceful.

Christmas Eve we tried a new tradition; a candlelight dinner. We did it at Mike's parents house and it was fun to include them. Then we packed up and headed home for some more fun. The kids got to open one present; their new jammies. And then they got the treats out for Santa and his reindeer. Ethan and Asia wanted to put out carrots, grapes and nutritious things for Santa because they didn't want Santa to get any fatter and have a heart attack and die! I think they saw something on TV that said Santa needed to go on a diet or something! It was a good thing because I didn't have any cookies to put on the plate anyway! They put out some water for the reindeer to drink and it turned red because Rudolph stuck his nose in it! They thought that was pretty cool.

Here's all of the loot:

Ethan was the first to wake up Christmas morning. We forgot to tell them the rules the night before about when they could wake up and, most importantly, when they could wake us up. I heard Ethan come upstairs and gasp and get excited about 7:30. Not too bad! Then he went and got Asia and then came and got us up. They couldn't wait to tear into their stockings!
And then the babies fianlly woke up around 8. They were pretty excited too. Jacob was a little more into the opening of the presents thing this year. Mia loved playing with the boxes!
Ethan got a new charger for his DS so he was in HEAVEN!

That night we had the Taylor family Christmas party. It was Kaylene's year to be in charge and she decided to do a progressive dinner. We started at Russ and Joy's for appetizers, then Nathan and Amy's for salad, then Kaylene and Doug's for the main course and present opening, and then our house for dessert. We put the kids to bed with Tina and Shayna babysitting and went over to Robert and Toni's for games. It was pretty fun.

Then we went home to pack up so we could leave for Canada the next morning. We left at about 9am and got there about 5ish for the Nicholas family Christmas party. And even more presents and spoiling! We did the usual up there; went shopping, went for sushi, sang karaoke, and visited. We had to go to the Sugarbowl and sled, even though the snow was almost gone in spots. It was so icy and shiny! The kids went down the hill and up the other side! Fun stuff!

We stayed up there for about 5 days and then headed back just in time to go up to Island Park for another Taylor party. This time we decided to rent a cabin for New Years. So we had 27 people in one cabin! It was pretty fun, except when it was time to go to bed. We had the babies sleep with us in one room. They had a pretty hard time sleeping, to say the least! I think it was a combination of teeth coming in and not being in their own beds for a week that really threw them off. Not the funnest! Besides the not sleeping issue, it was a good time. We played games, watched movies, went swimming, played in the snow, and made hair bows and watch bands. Oh, and we also ate LOTS and LOTS of food!! Here are some of the kids playing in the snow:

And fun times hanging out in the cabin:

It was a pretty fun time, but very very hectic. Not the way I would plan for next year! We live and learn, right! Now onto 2010!!

In The Homestretch

2009-12-14T07:05:00.013-07:00

Our last port day we went to Manzanillo. We just decided to get a taxi and head to the beach for the day. The temperature was in the 90's, so we got a lot of good sun that day.

On the beach, there were many people (locals) trying to peddle their wares to us. It was fun to watch them and how they went about their business.

You could hardly see this guy because he was carrying so many inflatable toys to sell!

These two ladies were selling mangoes and pineapples and just balancing everything on top of their heads! Very talented!

The waves were getting pretty big the later it got in the day. We wanted to rent a body board, but they were all the way down the beach! Too lazy to get them! We just played in the waves and took pictures of our feet in the sand:

As we walked back down the beach to catch another taxi, we decided to stop and get something to eat. It's always a bit scary eating strange food in Mexico, but we were so hungry we didn't care! We ordered a pina colada, guacamole and chips, and chicken quesadillas. It was all actually pretty good. It was nice to just relax under an umbrella and watch the waves come in and out.

There was a little flea market right by where we were eating, so we decided to check that out. We bought the rest of our souveniers here, it was so cheap!

Then it was time to get back to the ship, eat dinner and do some karaoke. And maybe dance a little with the waiters:

Here's Mike doing a little rendition of some country song:

And a little turkey waiting for us back in our room:

The next two days were sea days coming all the way back up to San Diego. We just took it easy, relaxed by the pool, ate a bunch of food, and worked out a bit. We could see Cabo San Lucas our first day back at sea. You can kind of see the island behind us:

Then it was time to get ready for our last formal night of the cruise:

And our last cute little towel animal; a monkey:

That's the end of the pictures. The last day must not have been very exciting. We had a great time and can't wait to go on another one! I would rate this cruise a 6 or 7 out of ten, just because the water wasn't as clear for scuba diving, the weather going down wasn't very warm the first day, and the boat was a bit small. The food was good, but not as good as some of the other boats we've been on. The sand on the beaches was nice, but not as nice as the caribbean. All in all it was a great time; lots of food and great service, but I prefer the caribbean cruises better.

Cruisin' Part Deux

2009-12-11T07:02:00.007-07:00

The next day we went to Zihatenejo and Ixtapa. We decided to just catch a taxi and head over to the Isle de Ixtapa. We tendered into Zihatenejo from the ship with Robert and Toni, grabbed a taxi for $30 roundtrip, and headed over to the dock and the boats that took you over to the Island.

This is where we caught a boat to go over to the Island of Ixtapa.

You can see the island just behind me. It was pretty nice. Mike and I just swam in the ocean and sunbathed while Robert and Toni sat on the beach under an umbrella, people watched and enjoyed some nachos and guacamole. Yum.

Here's the view from our balcony and the tender boats going back and forth. We did a bit of our shopping here and brought back a shark tooth for Ethan, and bracelets for my Young Women. It was a fun, relaxing day at the beach.

And our little towel animal elephant was waiting for us when we got back! Too cute!

Cruisin'

2009-12-07T06:50:00.020-07:00

This post may be long and boring for most, but I wanted to write down everything I could remember about our cruise for my benefit! Feel free to skip all the mumbo jumbo I'm writing!Mike and I were able to go on our 5th cruise to the southern Mexican Riviera last month. This was our 4th Carnival cruise. We cruised the Sapphire Princess our first time. My Mom and Dad and Mariko and Naomi were able to come down and watch our kids. They are so awesome to do this for us everytime!! Thanks so much! We have been really lucky that way!

We flew out of Salt Lake on a Wednesday morning after staying overnight at the Super 8 Tuesday night. Mike's parents decided they wanted to come with us too, even though they had just gone on the EXACT same cruise last year! Our cruise went on an awesome sale about a month before it was scheduled to leave and they couldn't pass up such a good deal! It was fun to have some company around. We played cards with them a bit and ate dinner with them every night.

So, we arrived safely in San Diego about noon. The plane did a weird thing when it was about to land. We had almost touched ground when the plane pulled up suddenly. We wondered what was going on. There was another pilot sitting just behind us, hitching a ride, and he said that planes do this all of the time. He said that there might have been another plane needing to take off ahead of us or the runway was just not available at that time, for some reason. It made people panic a little bit, but we just circled the airport and landed just 10 minutes after that. Crazy!

We hitched a taxi from the airport and we were at the cruise terminal in about 10 minutes. It was the best check-in process so far. It only took about another 15-20 minutes and we were up on the lido deck, enjoying the first of many gluttonous meals!

Then we were able to go to our stateroom. This is the first time we were able to get a balcony room. Since our cruise went on sale, we were able to upgrade our room. It was pretty nice. This is the view from our balcony before we set sail:

This is part of the inside:This ones' kinda dark since it was taken in front of the balcony doors:

Here's the view of the other end of our room:As we were getting ready to set sail, we were up on the lido deck and noticed something falling from the sky. It was a bunch of parachuters with colored smoke coming from their feet! Since we left on Veteran's Day, I think the navy ship next to us was having some sort of celebration. It was cool to see them fly and then land right on the navy ship.

Here's a view of downtown San Diego from the top deck of the ship, just before we shoved off:

At the muster drill. Some guys behind us were not enjoying themselves! Ha ha!

One of the many beautiful sunsets we were able to see. We chose to do late dining this time and we really liked it. It made us able to see the sunsets and have more time to play before getting gussied up for dinner.

Our first of many dinners in the dining room:

Our first towel animal of the cruise. It's a dog if you can't tell!

That was only the first day! The next day we had another day at sea. We hung out on the lido deck almost all day in the aft. It had a hot tub just for adults:

I had to get a picture of my pedi, lounging out on the balcony:

Our second towel animal, a froggie:

The next day we stopped at Acapulco. We didn't get there until noon, so we got up, worked out, and had a lovely breakfast on the lido in the aft. Here I am fishing a bug out of my drink:

Here we are, in Acapulco!

We went scuba diving in Acapulco. Here's the Acapulco Scuba Center who took us diving:

Here's their dock:

The inside of the scuba shop:Heading out to our dive spot with our ship in the background:

This is after our dive was all over and we headed back to our ship in the white van:I just got scuba certified only about a month before we left, so this was my first ocean dive. It was AMAZING! I can't wait to go again, only in the Caribbean. This water was pretty murky. You could probably only see about 30 feet in front of you, whereas in the Caribbean you can see more than 100 feet in front of you! It was still pretty cool though. We saw barracudas, starfish, sea snakes, eels, and a bunch of coral and a ton of fish. The second dive we went on ended up being a night dive. That was a neat, different experience. We each had flashlights and got to see a little octopus and a sting ray! AWESOME! We took some pictures with an underwater camera, but I still have to get them developed. I will need to get an underwater digital camera soon. Hmmm, maybe for Christmas?!...

Anyway, we got back to our ship in time to get ready for dinner. Here's our third towel animal, a gorilla I think!

Since we didn't get to Acapulco until noon, we got to stay until one in the morning. So after dinner we decided to go for a walk and do some shopping.

There was not too much going on, so we went back to the ship and checked out the karaoke lounge and then danced to the Philipino band in the Versailles Lounge. There were A LOT of pictures of naked people on this ship and many naked statues as well. This was Mike's favorite statue located just outside of the Versailles Lounge. Tee Hee!:

That was the first 4 days of our cruise, with only 4 more to go! Hopefully I can post those 4 days soon before the craziness of Christmas hits. Wish me luck! TTYL! :)

November Birthdays

2009-12-04T06:31:00.005-07:00

Here I am playing catch-up again! Story of my life! Ha! Anyway, we celebrated Asia's birthday at the beginning of this month with a family party. We invited all of the family over for cake and ice cream. She ordered Hawaiian pizza for her dinner with root beer of course. Then the family came over to open presents and eat cake. She wanted a princess castle cake again so this is how it turned out, moat with blue jell-o, drawbridge and everything:
Opening presents time:
All of her loot: Here is our beautiful birthday girl, enjoying her birthday cake:Asia is turning into quite a helpful and kind little girl. She helps me out so much. She likes to have jobs where she can do things like mommy does them; like doing the dishes and getting the babies ready for bed. She'll be a great little babysitter in a few years. She is very tall and people wonder if her and Ethan are twins! She loves to go to dance class with her friend, Mara, and she still loves to dress up and dance to music at home. She wants to learn how to play the piano and she had fun playing soccer for the first time this fall. She was the fastest runner because of her looooong legs! Her favorite thing to do is color with her mom. She's loves going to school and is trying to read chapter books already! It's fun to watch her learn so many new things and to see how excited she gets when does learn something new. Happy 6th Birthday my sweet Asia! :)

Mia Turns One!!

We celebrated Mia's birthday a few days early since we'd be on our cruise the day of her birthday. Here she is enjoying her favorite meal of pancakes and eggs:

Here's her doughnut cake. I decided since we just had cake last week, we would have doughnuts this week. Mia loved them:The classic 1st birthday chocolate face and hands:

Mmmmmm, finger-lickin' good:

New hat and gloves from Grandma Yamada:Mia has been such a good-natured, happy little baby. She loves to follow her older brothers and sister around and tries to do what they do. She just learned to walk a few weeks before her first birthday, so it's cute to see her waddle after them! She loves to read books and turns the pages all by herself. Just like her mom, she doesn't like to wear socks. When she notices them on her feet, off they come. She likes to dance and sing. Her favorite song right now is Itsy Bitsy Spider and she does all of the actions. She still sucks her thumb, mostly when she's tired or upset. She doesn't like anything in her hair and pulls everything out that I try and put in. She's a fun little girl to have around. Happy Birthday our Princess Mia! We Love You!

Still Halloween... Really!?

2009-11-26T07:39:00.006-07:00

Ok, ok, so we were busy and gone for a couple of weeks and I still have yet to post about what we did on the actual day of Halloween! Well, here goes.

We invited some friends over for dinner so I decided to make a "ghoulish" meal. We had deviled eggs that looked like blood shot eyeballs:

mummy dogs:

body parts jello:

squirrel brain and monkey eye ball stew:

And for dessert, bloody-brain cake:

It all looked pretty cool and disgusting. So disgusting that the kids didn't want to eat very much of it! It's funny how when something doesn't look so good to eat, your brain tells you that it's not going to taste very good either! I think that's what the kids' brains were telling them. They loaded their tummies up on candy instead!

Checking out all of the loot:

Our decorated porch:

We had the older kids (Ethan, Asia, and Aidan) go with their daddies because they wanted to RUN from house to house. The little ones couldn't keep up with them, so Emily and I took the babies around. Jacob wanted to go to EVERY house! He didn't want to quit. He was really liking the idea of going to a house and getting candy everytime! He would knock on the door, yell "trick or treat" and when they opened the door, he would walk right inside to find their candy bowl and take a handful! Not very shy at all! I had to make him stay outside and wait for them to hand him the candy. And he would always remember to say "tank too!" or "Thank You" in big people words.

He was the cutest little Superman:

He couldn't wait to go through his loot. He started right there on the porch!

The next week, Ethan was pretty sick of his candy so he decided to sell it to a dentist here in town. He was buying Halloween candy for $1.50 a pound! Ethan made 5 whole dollars because he had a little over 4 pounds of candy. They ship the candy over to Iraq for the soldiers. I was proud of him for making this decision. Asia, on the other hand, still has candy in her bag! She'd rather have candy than money still. Maybe next year she'll get the idea!