James' first prom

 James and Jocelyn.

James went to prom this past Saturday.  The promenade was at his school then they went to dinner at PF change's and then the dance was up at Sundance.  He had a great time.  I made her corsage.  It's the second one I've made for his dances.  This one was much easier.  I wasn't nearly as nervous.  It turned out great.  And no, it doesn't save me any money, yet.  I just do it because I think it's fun to make stuff out of flowers.

Isaac's birthday

 Friend party

 The gang in from night games.

Birthday cake #1 on the day of his birthday.  This is a great cake.  It's an Amish rhubarb cake

 and it is deliciousIsaac turned 9 last week.  We went and bought him a watch and got take out from Cafe Rio.  Gordon was  working late and I didn't want to take the kids out to dinner all by myself.  It turned out to be a great birthday.  We also delivered invitations for his friend party that Friday night  Which also was a success.  the kids played night games in the backyard and had cake and ice cream.  I do easy birthday parties.

Easter

Here is our Easter in pictures..

 Eleanor in her new goggles..

 Bridie with her easter basket..

 Jacob with a treat in his mouth..

James trying out one of his gifts..
Our egg hunt Sunday afternoon with Heimdals, Petersens, and Opa and Grandma.

 The kids

 Matthew

 Adaline

 James

 Bridie

Jacob and Bridie

The men.

our life in pictures

I haven't blogged in so long.  I finally downloaded my pictures and wanted to have them on the blog.  Here they are..

James got home really late from tour.  The next morning he got up and went to school.  I found this in my living room.  Welcome home James!

The three kids that keep me company while the other kids are at school.  Bridie has style.  She has on her Sunday shoes, Black pants with a red flower print, and the striped dress.  Every day it is a surprise to see what she will come up with.  I love Jacob with his Wal mart cowboy camp boots.  Eleanor is adorable.

I am fighting with the nap thing.  She still really needs a nap, but doesn't want to take a nap.  The day this picture was taken Eleanor told me "I am not going to take a nap today."  I thought if she feels so strongly about it, ok.  Well we have quiet time in the afternoon and Eleanor fell asleep.  She is a handful!

Adaline finished choir.  It was a really good experience for her and she loved it.  I was glad to have it over.

The city has been installing irrigation in front of our house.  It was such a pain!  We had to park our cars across the street.  The sound of the tractors and the rumbling was so annoying.  It will really help with the water bill in the summer though.

In April we got a huge snow storm and the kids pulled out the snow clothes and went sledding.  It was fun for them.

spring break

Spring break was pretty low key because of the huge expense we have of the trip to Europe.  I have found that the beginning of the week the kids just want to relax.  Don't want to go anywhere, don't want to do anything.  So I don't plan anything for at least 2 days.  Then we all start to go crazy so we get going.  Gordon took off thursday and friday.  We thought we would camp somewhere, but it was so cold we decided a day trip to Goblin Valley would be enough of a get away.  Thursday we got up, packed up and drove to Goblin Valley.  We listened to Louis Lamour the way down and everyone was so quiet.  We grabbed lunch at Subway and ate it when we got to Little wild horse canyon.  That hike is so easy and beautiful!  Eleanor hiked half of what we hiked.  The slot canyons are incredible!  Then we went over and played on the goblins for a couple of hours and then drove home.  We stopped in Price at the KFC for dinner.  My kids love to eat there!  It started to snow after we left Price.  I was so glad we didn't camp!    Friday we tried to go to Trafalga with our "pass of all passes", but everyone else had the same idea.  I am all about saving money, but my sanity is worth something!  We ended up going to Provo beach resort.  It was not nearly as crowded.  It was fun to have Gordon with us.  We ate carmel apples from Rocy Mountain Chocolate Factory and got pizza for dinner.  Saturday was a catch up day.  Gordon rototilled the garden and I did other odds and ends.  We watched tons os movies over the break and had some really fun times as a family.  So it was a success.

Cleaning the kids rooms

Isaac got the cleaning ball rolling.

So last Saturday I asked Isaac to clean his room and clean off the shelves in his room.  He took me literally and took everything off the shelves and put it in a big pile in the middle of his room.  He then got very overwhelmed with such a large job and left it all there.  The room was way messier after than before.    I didn't check up on his job progress that day but Monday I wandered up to find the huge mess.  Isaac and I spent the rest of the day going through his whole room.  Every inch of his room.  We threw away so much junk.  It was so great!  The Wednesday we did Adaline's room.  It actually took two whole days it was so bad.  Think big kitchen bags full of trash coming out of their rooms.  Today was the first day of spring break so we tackled James and Matthew's rooms.  They both had fairly clean rooms so I was shocked at what we threw away.  James said his room now feels felt like he just moved in.  All the kids rooms look so much better and it is so much easier for them to keep them clean without all the junk laying around.   Usually I get this bug in January and February, but it came late this year and at this point I really should be out in my flowerbeds, but it feels so good to fill up our city garbage can with junk from the house.  We haul so much stuff inside, it's nice to take stuff out once in a while.