We're off to a good start

Today when I was at my Tae-bo class, Tanner came running into the room with his face all bloody. Apparently he had hit his head on a corner. It wasn't as bad as it first looked, but we got him some liquid stiches so it would stop bleeding. Wish I would have had the camera when it first happened, he looked like he had dyed his hair red.
I am typically so not good with blood, I get sick. (For example last fall when Tanner was playing soccer he got hit in the nose with the ball and got a nasty bloody nose, I could not help him. I had to turn and look away, lucky for Tanner, Kevin was there to help him.) Today, Kevin was not there, so I had to be a big girl and clean him up all by myself, and I did it and did not get sick. Way to go me.

I tried to get a picture, obviously after he was cleaned up, but because of the glare off of his shiney, blond hair, it is hard to see.

Schools Out for Summer

Both of the kids have finished school for the summer. This is Isaac with his teachers. They had a little singing program for the end of the year.
Many parents get excited about summer, "Yeah we get to spend more time with the kiddies." That is so not my attitude. I spend plenty of time with the kids, and as much as I love them...So now that school is done, I am looking for things to do with the kids to keep them entertained. When they are not entertained they start misbehaving, fighting, and driving mom crazy. So if anyone has an great ideas of summer entertainment, please let me know. Today I let the kids finger paint, thinking this would entertain them for at least an hour, no such luck, 20 minutes and they were done.

Now for the weekend wrap up. How exciting a 3 day weekend. Unfortunatly, we did nothing fun. We did get a lot of things done, which was good. We planted lots of flowers and vegetables, mowed the grass, cleaned up the garage a little more, took another trip to the dump, cleaned the house, finished hanging the sheet rock in the basement, etc. Very productive. I also got to make a cake for a friend whose son was having a golf party. I had never made a golf cake before. I got the idea from Family Fun, they had a rectangle cake, I did it round. I used green sprinkles instead of coconut for the rough. Here is a picture:

Not the Answer I Wanted

So, many of you know that I was hoping to move to Pennsylvania. I have been talking about it for almost a year and even went out there to look for houses. Ever since I have thought this might be a possibility I have been praying to see if this would be the right decision for my family and I never got a real strong feeling either way. So I figured this meant either way would be fine. So I have been living the last year thinking maybe (hopefully) we will get to move close to my family. I figured if we were going to move I would want to do it before school starts in September, so we would have to put our house up for sale immediatly if that were to be a possibility. So Friday morning I prayed again to know, what in the heck I am suppose to do about this. No answer. Friday night I told Kevin we need to sit and have a serious chat about this, so we did and in the middle of our discussion I got my answer. Only once in my life have I recieved an answer to a prayer more strongly then this came to me. It was not a whisper it was a shout, "You are not moving to Pennsylvania." I sat on the couch and started crying and continued to do this for many hours till I fell asleep that night. Clearly this was not the answer I had hoped for. I really thought that I would be moving out there. I am really sad, really sad. It is really hard for me to be the only kid in my family who does not live driving distance from home, my kids will never really get to know their cousins or that side of the family, which is so sad for me. (As I write this I am crying again.) So to my mom and sisters especially, I am sorry, I had really looked forward to living closer to you, but it is something that is not meant to be (for now at least).

The Host

For all you Stephanie Meyer fans out there, I just finished reading the Host and it was really good. When I originally heard the premise, I thought it was going to be dumb. (However, when I heard there were these great books about vampires, I was also not eager to start reading, but I did and loved those.) Right after The Host came out, my sister-in-law was talking about how good it was, so I decided to get it and take it on my trip with me. So glad I did, because it made the drive to Anaheim not seem like 10 hours. Some people don't get excited about long books, but the longer the better and this one and it's 600+ pages did not disappoint. Have fun reading.

Back from Disneyland

We just returned from a fun filled trip to Disneyland (St. George). We left Saturday morning and spent a few days with Kevins parents in St. George. It was nice to be there and Kevin was happy to be with his mommy on Mothers Day. Most importantly Kevin was happy to be there playing Rock Band. It was also very cute to see our little 6 year old holding his own as the Rock Band drummer. The kids had fun swimming and spending time with grandpa and grandma.

We left early Monday morning and drove the 6 hours to Disneyland, we got there and parked at the hotel and headed right to the park. We decided to purchase annual passes (you only have to go 2 times in the year and it more then pays for it) because we love Disney that much. That day was a little cool, but it was nice. For those of you who like to go to Disney when it is not crowded the second (and first from what we hear) week of May is a good time to go. We spent 4 days in the parks and for the most part the lines were super short. It seems whenever you go to Disney and no matter how "uncrowded" the park is, there will always be long lines at Dumbo, Peter Pan, Autopia and Finding Nemo. Luckily, we have a pretty good system when we go that the only real substantial lines we waited in were Nemo (45 minutes) and Autopia (30 minutes). The weather got a little warm (almost 90 the last 2 days there), which just made us more tired then usual, so we didn't stay at the park till close like we normally do. But we had plenty of time to ride all the rides we wanted to (a lot). The last day there I ran into some old friends of mine. Jeromy and Carrie Dyer. I knew Jeromy from my Ricks College days and Carrie (Wannacott) from my stake growing up. It was fun to see them and spend a little time with them. We had planned on spending a few days at the park with our friends Chris and Melia, but because of work they were unable. We did get to meet up with them for dinner (thanks for that by the way) and that was fun to see them as always. We headed back to St. George Friday morn and managed to avoid all the LA traffic. We finally made it back to Utah Sunday and now life is crazy trying to get caught up on all the things we left behind. But it was fun while it lasted.

Back from Disneyland (Pictures)

Mothers Day

I was out of town for Mothers Day, but I just wanted to say how greatful I am for these 3 little boys that I get to be a mommy to. Thank you boys for making my job so great.

Mario Party 6

Super Mario Birthday Party

So this was a tough birthday theme. Normally when my kids decide what they want to do for their party, I immediatly head to birthdaypartyideas.com to gather ideas. Unfortunatley, Super Mario is just not as popular as pirates, so there was almost nothing helpful. So I turned to Google and still not a lot of info or help out there but I did get some good ideas from some other helpful parents. So I decided that I would post all the details on the blog so a momma like me could find the info in their time of need. So for friends and family who read this blog (unless you are planning a Mario party), this may be to much info. Just look at the pictures and call it good.

As, I have mentioned in a previous post, I made these invites on Photoshop and it was a big stress in my life, but they turned out just as I had hoped.
Obviously, the theme is Super Mario and one of the kids favorite games is Mario Party and so that is what we decided to base the party on. For those of you unfamiliar with the game, it is kind of like a board game, where you roll and then move along the board. In between turns you play mini games to earn coins, which you use to purchase stars. The one with the most stars wins.
When the kids get to the party they will get a Mario or Luigi hat and moustache. This was the most expensive part of the party for me the hats were a little over a dollar each (from Oriental Trading). I just used white felt to make the M or L circles on the hat, which I glued on with fabric glue.

So I am using red and blue construction paper, which I will tape to the side walk and driveway to make up the board. I bought big fluffy dice for a dollar, for the kids to roll.
For the first mini game we are playing Get the Goomba (which is a character in the game). For this game I just bought brown balloons. Before I blew them up I put either 1 or 3 plastic coins (purchased from Oriental Trading) in each. The kids will pop the balloons to get the coins. Easy enough.

The next mini game is Yoshi's Egg Hunt. Think Easter only instead of candy in the plastic eggs we put plastic coins. What kid doesn't like an egg hunt. Yes, I painted these posters myself. I am no artist, but I thought they looked fine. I worked on them while my son was at school and when he got home, I said "Tanner look what I did!" Yes, I was excited and kind of proud how they turned out. His response, "Mom, they look funny." Alright, even my 6 year old thinks they look like crap. Yoshi, I do realize looks more like Baby Tad then himself, like I said I am not an artist.

The next mini game is Mario Madness. We have a small moon bouce jumper thing and I am going to put 144 bouncy balls in their and let the kids jump around and pick up as many balls as they can. Whoever gets the most gets coins, they all get to keep balls for the goody bag.

The next mini game is Save Princess Peach. With this game, I am sending the kids on a treasure hunt. They will all work together to find clues. I painted a poster of Peach that will be hiding in the playground (the final clue will lead them there). All kids will get coins.

The final mini game is Chain Chomp Bash. This is just a pinata filled with candy and of course coins. I saw the idea for this online and decided I would try to make my own. I have never made a pinata from scratch. I was at my local party store and they had some clearance items they were selling for a dollar. There I found a soccer ball pinata (with a big dent in the back). I brought it home and painted it and as long a you look at it from the right direction, it looks like what I wanted and it only cost me a dollar.

I needed the kids to have a place to put all their coins so I made these classic mario coin boxs out of yellow cardstock and a homemade question mark stencil. A little time consuming but overall easy project.

When the kids get to the end of the board they will pay 20 coins to get their star. For the stars I just bought some 5 inch carboard gold stars that I stung with gold curling ribbon to make necklaces.

For goody bags I just bought these bright colored bags with handles and printed off pictures of Mario and Luigi and I cut them out and glued them on the bag. Inside there are stickers (which were purchased from Ebay), crayons, homemade coloring books (I found pictues online), bouncy balls, star notepad. They will also get to take home their hats, easter eggs, and coins. With the pinata I figured I didn't need to add any other treats.

The cake has been a bit of a stress. Originally I had planned on buying a retired Mario Wilton cake pan, but decided I didn't want to spend $30 on it so I decided to try something called a buttercream freezer transfer. You print out a picture and put a piece of wax paper over it and then essentially paint it with frosting. Well my fisrst attempt I think I didn't use buttercream frosting, thinking it would work anyway. Well it did not, so we started over, and I think this time it will work. (A big thanks to Kris for the hours she spent helping me with the cake, what would I do without my cake expert.) Pictures will come later if and when the cake turns out.

Not to exciting, but Good

So that would sum up my weekend. We spent a big chunk of Saturday getting the yard going. Kevin had to make sure sprinklers were going and mow and I had to take care of the spraying and pulling weeds in the flower beds. After taking two loads of garbage to the dump, we are finally able to park one of our cars in the garage. So yeah! At about 4pm Kevin was finally able to make it to the basement to work on the sheet rock, needless to say, it is not finished. The goal is to get that done this week, before we head out to Disneyland.

Although it was all work and no play this weekend, the weather was beautiful. The tulips are out and the trees are in bloom. You can't help but be happy when it feels like spring.

The kids also got to get out and ride bikes. Don't mind the outfits, on Saturdays we let our kids wear just about anything and they look like dirty little ragamuffins. It works for us.

I'm Marianne Dashwood

Can you tell I'm taking a sick day. Find out which Jane Austen heroin you would be.

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Twilight Quiz

For all you Twilight fans out there, here is a quiz to see which Twilight guy you are most compatible with. (Yes, I know I'm married, but I also really liked the books). I was really hoping for Jacob (I am totally for Team Jacob), but apparently I prefer vampires (I got Edward).

Strep Throat

After 5 days of a sore throat and fevers I finally decided to go to the doctor and I do have strep throat. I'm just glad they didn't say, "It's viral." So in 24 hours I should be feeling good to go. To all of you that I have been around, sorry, I really hope I did not pass anything on to you.