My little Chef

Kyler is so darling! He loves to help me cook and he puts on this chef's hat and his apron whenever I start cooking. Here he is counting his noodles and eating them raw!! I'm so glad that Kyler is still a little boy that loves to be with his mom! =)

My New Lifesavers

Well, becoming a homeschooling mom changes some of my priorities and the way I manage my time for sure. I am pretty good at time management but I have gotten even better about it since I HAVE to to keep my sanity and to keep this family rolling while teaching a 5th grader.

My new lifesaver is the library! I love our public library system! It's awesome! I can look up books or videos that have to do with the topics I'm teaching and even if they are at a different library in another town, they will pull it from the shelf and ship it down to my library here in Centerville. It's great!!

I'm at the library at least twice a week and I use their online system to look for books, renew books and put holds on books. I can't believe what a great system they have. I guess I never needed this before when I was in CA. Maybe they had that system there and I didn't know it. But this library system is amazing. I'm definitely enjoying spending time at the library with my kids much more than I did in CA. In fact, last week I maxed out my library cards( embarrassing) and so I have to open cards in my other kid's names now so that I can check out more than 70 items at a time. I know that seems crazy but with all the subjects we are doing, plus the little boy's books and Cameron's chapter books for his reading..it adds up!!

My other lifesaver is the passwords for the TEACHERS EDITION of Kaylie's math book!! I am SAVED because now I can correct her homework online in 2 minutes instead of 20 minutes of doing the problems myself and actually having to THINK about them!! I do enough thinking as a mom..don't I deserve a break?? =)

Anyhow..those are things I'm grateful for today! Just thought I'd share!

Puzzle Time

For Family night we put together the puzzle that we bought for a souvenir of Disney World. The kids thought it was so fun and wanted me to take a photo of it!

Ryan's Birthday

Yesterday we got together as siblings to celebrate my brother Ryan's birthday. It was great to spend some time together and this is the first time in MANY years we've all been together on his birthday. The last time may have been when I was about 17?? So Ryan would have been 11. Between missions for my three siblings and my getting married when Ryan was just 14, its just been a long time since we've celebrated together in this way! So this was fun!

Ryan looking at his gift from me...a scrapbook! Of course, its tradition, I have to do a scrapbook for my new nephew Tyler. So I got the album started and now Laura can add to it and Ryan can put in some of his wonderful photos!

Here is my darling new nephew Tyler! And my not-so-new niece, she is 10 months now! Wow has fast they grow!!

Darling Bella wearing Auntie Heidi's piggy slippers!! It was fun to spend time together! Thanks for coming everyone!

Red Carnation Concert

Kaylie had a vocal concert earlier this month. It was called her Red Carnation Concert. Here are a few photos from her performance. She is doing some little dance moves in this photo.

Class Projects!

Here are the cute projects we made at the Mother & Daughter Valentine Class yesterday!!

Each girl got to decorate a mailbox....perfect for putting Valentines in!! The girls loved this!! We also made two other valentines and a chocolate box! So fun!

Last weekend I did activity days for the 8-11 year old girls in my church. These are the three projects the girls did. They learned different stamping techniques and how to use some fun tools. We had a great time!! It's been a busy stamping month for me! =0)

Happy Valentine's Day!

I hope everyone is having a Happy Valentine's Day!

We had our Valentine's Breakfast this morning and here are the kids sporting some of their Valentines. We've been enjoying eating on the heart plates all month! I love Valentines Day and all the fun decorations that go along with it!

Here is Kaylie in her Vday outfit, ready for our first Mother & Daughter Stamping class here in Utah. We had 13 mother/daughter or grandmother/granddaughter duos at our class and it was a lot of fun!

Kaylie and Mom ready to start class. We had three tables set up in addition to the pool table so we could accommodate a lot of stampers. It is so great to have a Stamping Studio like this! And now to be able to use it! So much fun!!

Ghiradelli

Friday Night we took a ferry boat from our resort to DownTown Disney. Here are Kaylie and Cam with the Mary Poppins balloon behind them. It was really pretty but hard to photograph at night.

The kids had a blast with their delicious desserts at Ghiradelli!! Yummy!

Dallyn sat by me and had chocolate chip with sprinkles!!

This is how the little boys enjoyed it...they were plum worn out and slept through the whole thing. The next day when we were leaving for the airport Kyler said, "we need to go get ice cream mom" because the last thing he had remembered we were going to get ice cream and then he had fallen asleep on the ferry boat! Poor guy! This is what a week at Disney World will do to ya! =)

Lego Fun, Etc.

Here's a few more photos from our trip...first of Kyler playing with Donald at the splash ground at the pool at our resort.

Then we went to Downtown Disney and the kids thought the life size Lego people were so cool!

Dallyn's favorite of course! How cool is this??

Cam and Brad in front of a HUGE lego dinosaur! There was another large lego sea monster in the lake too!

Be my Friend!

Hi friends,
Ok, so I've added the Friends section in the top corner of my blog, so add your name to my friends list by logging on with your google id! Also, I've set up my blog finally--after 2 years---to notify me when you post comments to my blog! So now I'll be better about replying to you when you do...so feel free to leave comments as you'd like!! I'm finally getting a little more savvy with this blog thing so I'm taking advantage of these little tools of the trade. So if you want to be my friend, then log on to the right. I know more than 8 of you are my friends!!! =)

Just a few more cute ones..

I know I already posted from Bella's party but I just had to share a few more cute photos from the Birthday Party!! The girls are just precious!! Enjoy!!

Happy 2nd Birthday Bella!

We got to go down to Orem last weekend for Bella's Birthday Party. Unfortunately Kyler was sick so Scott and Kyler stayed home. Te rest of us had a great time visiting with Amy's family.

Bella's Favorite Animal is a monkey! So when Kaylie and I found these cute pink monkey pajamas we just couldn't resist! Here is Kaylie making monkey noises to make Bella smile!

Kaylie and Bella and those cute monkeys!!

Bella was really excited to get a Little People Dollhouse which she'll share with her little sister for many years to come!

Two darling girls enjoying the dollhouse!!

Bella's First Cupcake!

Bella was so excited to get her first Cupcake! Here she is diving into it!

Here I go....

Yum, Yum, Yummy!!

Enjoying a Birthday Lunch with Bella!

Our Last Day...Hollywood Studios

On our 5th day we let the kids vote on what they wanted to do, where they wanted to go back to. The vote came back that Hollywood Studios was a favorite!

Kaylie voted for Aerosmith's Rockin Roller Coaster as did Mom and Cameron
Kyler voted for seeing Mickey Mouse's Clubhouse again
Dallyn voted for the Extreme Stunt Show (no surprise there!)

So here is Dallyn standing in front of the set for the show.

It was pretty amazing but I was fine with seeing it once...I guess I'm just not into loud racing cars doing tricks and flying off buildings. Dallyn loved it though! Here he is in front of the main stunt car.

This time we took a walk through the animation studios and were SO excited to see that they are coming out with a CARS 2!! We love Cars 1 so this is awesome!!

Afterwards we went back to the Villas for some R & R. We went swimming at the water slides pool, had a nice dinner together in our Villa and enjoyed time together as family and friends. We had a wonderful vacation!