Pioneer dance

For the past little while the twins have been learning about Utah history at school. Of course Pioneers are a big part of that so they have been doing a lot of learning about pioneers. Apparently they have also been learning some pioneer dances and last week they had a performance of sorts. It was so much fun to watch. They did the Virginia reel and then a square dance. I remember square dancing in 4th or 5th grade and I just loved it! It was fun to watch them both. After they did their dances they told the kids to grab a parent and they had the parents do the Virginia reel with them. It was cute. I did it half with Emily and then the other half with Jason. It was hard to get any good pictures so you'll have to use your imagination what we all looked like dancing. ;) It was lots of fun.

Remembering a Great Man

Last night President Gordon B. Hinckley left this earth to reunite with his sweetheart.

I was so sad to hear the news because he is really the only President of the Church I remember well. The others that have been prophet in my lifetime I was too young to really remember much about them. He was so encouraging but at the same time let us know that we could "be a little better". He did so much I don't even know what to write about. Temples for sure...he's made them so much more accessible to so many members of the church. He was such a great man and I'm sure every member of the church will miss him. He has done so much for our church and for the world. I hope his family is comforted at this time of loss in their lives.

What do you remember about President Hinckley?

Trying to go Green

I have been thinking about whether I should blog about this or not and decided that I would because hopefully some of you will decide to join me. I feel strongly that I have a responsibility to take care of this earth as best I can. Heavenly Father created it for us and it is our job to care for his creations and treat them with respect. So, recently I decided that I need to do more things to help our Earth to stay beautiful. The great thing about being "green" is that most of the things you do to help the planet also save you money. I'm going to share some of the things that we are trying slowly to do in our home and hopefully you can find a few of them that you are willing to do too. None of these are huge, but all of them make a small difference and if many of us do them then they make a bigger difference. So, even if you don't want to go green check out the ones that'll save you money!

Change to compact fluorescent light bulbs (cfl) in your home. We get them at Sam's club and they are pretty cheap compared to other places. They will save you money on your electric bill.

Get an aerated shower head to cut down on the amount of water you use when you shower while still giving you enough water pressure. This will save you on your water bill unless you already take "military showers" like my dad does :).

Wash most of your clothes in cold water to save the energy of heating the water and only run full loads of laundry.

Turn off he faucet while you brush your teeth.

Use natural (vinegar, baking soda) or bio degradable cleaning product. Use rags instead of paper towels to clean with. You will definitely save if you use natural cleaning products. There are tons of "recipes" online for cleaning with stuff you already have in your kitchen.

Seal up the cracks around windows and doors. They let the warm air out in the winter and the cold air out in the summer.

Use a reusable water bottle instead of buying new disposable ones all the time.

Check out Freecycle! Go to www.freecycle.org to find a group near you. This is a place where you can give away things that you no longer want/need but keep them out of the land fills. How often have you thrown away something that you thought no one would want only to find out later that someone could have used it. This is a great way to help others just by getting rid of your stuff.

So...if you decide to do one or more of these please leave a comment and tell me what you are doing. Also, if you have more ideas for easy ways to help the environment please share them by leaving a comment!

Have a great day!

First "solid" food

I finally decided to go ahead and start Liam on "solid" food. At this stage it really isn't solid at all, but more solid than milk I suppose. I have been putting it off for two reasons. First and foremost I just don't want to rush him through his firsts too fast because then they'll be over. Second, I wanted to be sure that he was ready. Well...he definitely was. He LOVED it and would get impatient if I waited too long between bites. It was pretty funny. He also wanted to grab the spoon. I'm pretty sure that more came out than stayed in, but he sure liked it. I got to give him the first few bites and then each of the kids got to feed him too. My new camera's batteries were dead so we had to make do with my old camera. So, success with the feeding!!















In the video below you can witness him fussing when I take too long to feed him, and grabbing the spoon to pull it to his mouth.

Pinewood derby, laundry, and sick again

Tuesday was Jason's pine wood derby. He had a lot of fun making his car with Dad and Grandpa to help. He painted it and designed it all on his own. It did pretty well taking 2nd in his group of cars.
















His car is second from the left






I have to admit that I HATE doing laundry, but I remember loving playing with laundry baskets as a kid. ;) I thought I'd put Liam in one and see what he did. He liked it as far as I could tell...if nothing else he looked cute in it.

Just when I thought that we were all going to be healthy Jason Jr got a cold and now Liam is getting one again. He has the runny/stuffy nose to prove it. No cough yet though...I'm hoping that his immune system will kick in quickly and get rid of it. I thought we were doing such a good job washing hands etc and trying to keep him from getting sick, but to no avail. Hopefully this one will be shorter than the last one. Have a great day!

Training, dinner, and cousin

I actually had stuff to do this weekend, which is rather unusual. Of course we always do the cleaning/shopping etc on Saturday, but this weekend I had some obligations and some fun too.

I'll start with the obligations...I was recently called as the assistant cub master in our ward. So far, all that they've told me they want me to help with are things like making phone calls, helping with refreshments, and helping with whatever else they need. So, I'm thinking no big deal I know how to do all of these things. Well...apparently if you work in cub scouts you have to go to this training meeting and it's 3 hours long on a Friday night....now I don't know about you, but I can think of many things I'd rather do on a Friday night than sit through 3 hours of "training". First of all, I don't think there are many things in this world that are important enough and complicated enough to need 3 hours of training and I'm certain that cub scouts isn't one of them. I know that I'm biased when it comes to training and you can all thank my dear husband for that, but I've been converted to a better way. Honestly, there was good information at the training--although none of it was really geared too much to me specifically. But I can tell you that they could have given us the same information in MUCH less time. In fact, most of what they told us could have been written down and we could read through it and then they could have a short question and answer for anything that was confusing for us and it would have saved all of us a lot of time. So, that's how I spent my Friday night.


Thankfully Saturday night was a MUCH more enjoyable time. We were invited to go over to have dinner with Dallas and Diana--some friends that we made when Jason was working at MSTAR and then BYU. We all got to go to Orlando together when Jason and Dallas when to a conference there. I think Diana got a kick out of my enthusiasm when we went to Disney world since I had never been to anything Disney before. :) We had a great time. We ate some delicious soup--played a fun game, watched some Planet Earth and that was the adults! The kids had fun playing together--I'm not even really sure what they played. I know the boys played the Wii for a little bit and the girls had some kind of game going too. All the girls wanted to hold the baby, so they all sat on the couch and just passed him down. Then he was hungry and Jasmine and Abby were just so interested in him that they sat and watched him eat. It was really cute. Thanks for the great time guys!





Sunday, just the kids and I went to the in-laws house since Jason had meetings. Later on Mike and Alisha came with Brooklyn and it was fun to sit her by Liam and see them start to notice each other. This first picture is when we had just set them by each other to see how big they were...they are nearly the same size even though Brooklyn is 2 months older. The next picture is when Liam started trying to grab her and "get to know her". ;) It'll be so fun to see these guys grow together!

Hat and sitting up

I decided to see if this hat fit him yet the other day and he looked so cute I had to take some pictures. This one makes me think he's trying to look cool.









This one he's just happy








Now, I can't for the life of me figure out why these are sideways. they aren't that way on my computer, but when I downloaded them they are on here. I can't find a way to rotate them on blogger so you'll just have to look at them sideways. This is Liam trying to sit up. He does a pretty good job as long as he doesn't fling himself backwards (which is why sister is behind him ready to catch), but I'm still surprised at how strong he is at his age!

Last day of Christmas beard

Every year around christmas Jason grows a beard. He can't have one while working for the church so he enjoys not shaving when he takes vacation over Christmas break. I have to admit that I don't love the thing becuase it's tickly and pokey and I just prefer smooth skin...but he looks pretty good with a beard if I do say so myself. I made him take pictures last night before he shaved it off. I'm just grateful he never actually did any of the crazy "beard art" things he was talking about the whole break. I was amazed at how much younger he looked without a beard after he shaved it off. Emily likes his beard though and wants him to get a job where he can have one all the time. Thanks but no thanks is what I say to that. ;)

Buy or Borrow

This post goes along with my last post about being a bookworm...by the way thanks to those of you who have joined me on goodreads and I hope to see more of you soon!! A little background on this subject. I am a borrower--as far as books go I LOVE the library and almost always have a stack of books from there. I don't like to buy a book until I've read it and know that I love it enough to read again. Jason on the other hand is a buyer...he figures if it's worth reading it's worth buying. Not to say one is better than the other, but if both of us were buyers we'd be even more buried in books than we already are!! ;) So, are you a buyer or a borrower?? How do you narrow down the books you have so you aren't overrun? I find it hard to part with books even if I haven't read them in awhile. Both Jason and I are going to have to figure out how to part with some soon or they will take over our house!