trying to catch up

It has been forever since I last updated my blog and I feel like I have been severly lacking!
I still don't have much time since it is 12 AM but I thought I would take a few minutes to five everyone a brief overview of our busy July.

First of all- we had a great 4th of July, unfortunately the batteries in my camera died so I have no pictures! We walked down to State street that morning and watched the Murray city parade- not too bad of a parade although Jake complained that it was all advertisements and politicians.
Later that day we went to Jake's parents house and had dinner and then on to the Sandy City parade. My nephew James was in this parade with the West Jordan High School marching band. After the parade we headed over to Jordan High School where we met up with more of Jake's family for fireworks.

Next up was a trip to Idaho- The tile around our shower started to fall off the wall and after two estimates the landlord decided it would all have to be replaced. Because we would not have a bathroom for the week the girls and I headed up to Idaho to stay with my family while Jake headed to his parents for the week. It was nice to be able to visit my family for the week since I didn't think I would be able to make it up there this summer. This also gave Jake some time to spend with his parents before they left on their mission, which brings us to one of our next big July items.

July 13th Jake's parents spoke in church in preparation for their mission to the Little Rock Arkansas mission. After a week in the MTC they were back home for the weekend so the 20th we all said goodbye and they left the next tuesday for their year in the mission field.

July 26th was Juliana's 3rd birthday- here is a picture of her with her cake
and then the 31st was Christena's 9th birthday- her is a picture of her with her cake
she wanted a fashion cake, so this is her purse cake.

And here is a picture of my kitchen after I was done making and frosting both cakes for the family birthday party on the 27th.

It was lots of fun, and a lot easier for me to just celebrate both girls birthdays on the same day. My sister Doreen and my birthdays are only a week apart and we always had seperate birthday stuff. I don't know how my mom did it.

Here is Juliana opening one of her presents.

she got a ball from Michele and Steve and kids. It was wrapped really well so she needed a little extra help to get it open.

And here Christena is opening her present from Jake and me.
She was very excited to get her own digital camera. Now maybe she will quit using mine!

Sorry for just the quick overview of our month- now that it is halfway through August I hope this month might be a little bit slower!

Sunday Undies!

We have been working on potty training Juliana for the last couple of weeks. I really hate potty training, I personally think it is one of the worst parts of being a parent, and I would love to never have to do it. Luckily for me Juliana has been doing a great job. The first week was a little scary and her biggest challange was actually doing something when she sat on the toilet. She loves to sit on the potty, but doesn't like to sit there for more than 30 seconds. The only way we can get her to stay is by singing with her or reading her stories. My poor downstairs neighbors have probably heard us singing "the wheels on the bus", "thumbkin", or "5 little monkeys jumpin on the bed" so many times they want to pull their hair out! Last week was pretty good, we only averaged one accident a day and now she is even figuring out when she has to go and is telling me-yeah! I think we have almost gotten there- She has been one of my easiest to potty train!

These are her pretty rufflySunday underwear- they look really cute under a dress!
Of course I am too paranoid to let her wear underwear to church-I don't really want an accident in nursury, so she still gets to wear a pull-up for church, but after church she gets to wear these pretty panties!

late again!

Once again I am late at updating my blog. Since last sunday was Father's Day we were gone most of the day and didn't get home until almost 10 and I still had to call my Dad so I had planned on updating on Monday, of course that didn't happen and here we are back again at Sunday.

Jake had a good father's day. The girls have all enjoyed the presents that he got. I gave him a croquet set and the girls could hardly wait for him to get home from work on Monday so they could play. They played 3 or 4 times this week.
Here is Olyvia trying out croquet. She had a few good hits.

Jake showing the girls how it is done

It took him the longest to get through the first wickets, but of course he ended up winning-by a long shot!

Olyvia and Juliana gave Jake a Rummikub game. Christena and Savannah love to play this game and Monday morning they took these pictures with my camera.

Savannah likes to be the look a like for the wild's.

I thought this picture of Juliana was cute- I think she was a little bored with our dinner conversation!
Well I hope everyone has had a great two weeks- hopefully it won't take me another two weeks before I blog again.

Calling in Stupid!

This week has been a little crazy! Tuesday was supposed to be the last day of me working at Alta View Elementary, but I encountered a little glitch in my plans.

Christena and Savannah were going to come to work with me so they would be able to see their friends from their old school and Olyvia and Juliana were going to go to my friend Rachel's house like they did every Tuesday. Tuesday's I also have to drop of my hats for the week at Hat's with Heart, so I usually do that on my way to work. Things have a way of not going as planned, however.

Tuesday morning we all got up and dressed and at 10:15 we were ready to go. I went into my room to grab the keys while the kids all headed to the car, only to find my keys were not where I had left them the night before!

I knew I had put my keys on top of the armoire in my bedroom the night before when I went in to change into my pajamas but they weren't there. I looked around the armoire to see if they had fallen on the floor and looked underneath to see if they had been kicked underneath-nothing. 15 minutes more of frantic searching I called Jake to see if he had taken them, or moved them or had any idea where they may have gone- of course he hadn't seen them either, but asked if I may have left them out in the garage the night before when I went to get somethings out. The only problem-we had a lock on the garage and the key was on my key ring! I tried to cut the lock off, but only had little wire cutters-didn't work. Next I tried to take the bolt off the garage- all I succeeded in doing was rounding off the bolt. 30 minutes later, after calling in to work to tell them I was going to be late- I headed back inside for another shot at my bedroom. This time I cleared everything off the top of my dresser and under and around it. When by 11:15 I still hadn't found my keys I called Jake again and he said he would leave work and come home to open the garage.

After he opened the garage we found...nothing! He came inside and helped to look for the keys. About an hour later ta-da...

My keys! (sorry the picture is sideways)

Jake said he had got to thinking where I may have put my keys if I hadn't put them on the armoire like I said (and still insist) that I had put them, and he figured I may have dropped them on the bed.

He had to sift through all of the other stuff we had thrown on the bed in our frantic search, and there under a blanket was my keys! They had to have been there all night!

At this point it was already 12:15 I was supposed to get off work at 1:00. Factor in the 15 minutes it takes for me to drive there, I didn't make it. So instead I called in stupid and got to work on Wednesday instead. On the plus side that meant there were no kids to have to fight with!

Summer is here!

The kids are finally done with school! Yea! Friday the 30th was there last day. All day SaturdayChristena was saying "I am now officially a 4th grader!" she is a little excited. I can't believe how fast these girls are growing up. Friday and Saturday Christena and Savannah spent the day alternately on the phone with their friends. I finally had to kick Christena off the phone and Jake said he is going to set a time limit for how long they can talk. Christena is already worried about next fall and whether the boy she likes is going to be in her class next fall and if he will like her or not. She's not even 9 yet! I am dreading her becoming a teenager!

Last Tuesday was my 29th birthday- I figured I can admit to my age since I am still under 30. My kids informed me you are not old until you hit 30 (Sorry for everyone over this age!) They also said that 30 is old but 40 is officially old. I haven't figured out what happens after 40!

Savannah insisted on making my birthday cake. So I baked it before I went to work so it had time to cool and after Jake came home from work he helped her to make the frosting. Savannah wanted to do all the decorating herself and kept sending Jake out of the kitchen.

Here is the finished product-

They realized after they were done that they wrote on the cake upside down from the pictures. The pink picture is a cake and the green picture is a frog! Savannah did a great job!

Here is me with a few of my birthday gifts! These two are from Jake. The girls all gave me earrings.

This picture is one Jake snapped of Juliana doing her favorite past time...

Picking her nose! Everytime we tell her to stop she laughs and tries to stick her finger further up her nose- She does at least ask for a tissue when she is done!

friends in high places

It pays to know the right people!
Saturday night Jake and I went to a Utah Blaze arena football game. Three of the guys Jake worked with when he worked for the Grizzlies (hockey team) moved over to the Blaze, so Jake was able to get free tickets from them. Our seats were on the 25 yd line (if your not familiar with arena football this is mid- field) and we were only 4 rows up! The tickets were $110 and they gave us wristbands for the VIP dinner before the game. It was amazing! We could see everything, right down to the expression on the players faces and you could hear the helmets hitting. Unfortunately we were a little too close to the action for a girl that was sitting 3 row in front of us. She was on the front row and one of the passes came right over the receivers hands and hit her right in the head. We didn't see exactly everything that happened, but she was knocked out cold and they had to take her out of the arena on a stretcher with a backboard and a neck brace- I think this was just a precaution. The players were really cool about the whole thing. The Chicago rush defender looked over the side and could tell that she was hurt so he called for people to come over and help. The Blaze team also autographed a football and gave it to her. I'm sure this was a game she will never forget! You never expect this at a football game, I think that it made a lot of people more aware. There was one family that was just the row behind the girl that had some young kids that moved during half time.

Even with all the drama it was a really exciting game. The Blaze won the game with a field goal in the last few seconds!

It was a great night! Thanks Dave, Ryan and Michael!

family fun

So I have been a little behind on my blogging lately. You know how they say time flies when your having fun? Well I think time flies even faster when you are busy. It seems like I never have enough time to get everything done lately and blogging is what tends to get left out.

We have had a fun couple of week though. On the 8th Jake was able to get free tickets to the Albuquerque Isotopes/Salt Lake Bees baseball game, and who can pass up free! It was a fun game. The Isotopes had won the first two games so I guess the bees were due a win, but the Isotopes were thoroughly trounced! We left during the 8th inning when the Isotopes were down by 6 or 7 runs. We figured the game was over and we wanted to beat the traffic!
We did end up with a souvenir ball though. Just after we got to the game, the Isotopes hit a ball almost to the fence where we were sitting. Jake was yelling so loud the outfielder looked up to see what was going on. After the play was over the bees player tossed the ball over the fence to us. The girls thought it was great and both Christena and Savannah have taken the ball for show and tell.
Next was Mother's Day. I always love mother's day. A whole day of Jake telling me to sit down and put my feet up and relax. Jake fixed dinner and then we went and visited Jake's grandma and mom. It was a nice day. The kids were really cute with their presents. Olyvia gave me some new ponytails to use in her hair (her words), and Savannah gave me some bright red fingernail polish, again I think it was more for her. Christena gave me a box of chocolates and believe me those are for me. I hid them so the kids couldn't find them and eat them all.

I hope all the rest of you mom's also had a great mother's day.

Lastly, Friday night we had my niece Karyn stay the nght with us while her parents were in Las Vegas for a wedding. I survived 5 girls friday night and so saturday we went to the park for a picnic lunch and to let them get rid of some energy. Here are some pics from the park.

Juliana is enjoying her Capri Sun, she was exhausted, but not about to miss out on any of the fun!
Savannah is riding a lion.
Does this mean Christena is a tree hugger?
All the girls took turns taking pictures with my camera. Olyvia liked taking close ups of her face! She had some other lovely ones of up her nose, and she tried to take one of her tongue-the silly girl!

For all of the husbands out there- Jake got tired of me taking over the blog so he has started his own sports blog where anyone who is interested can read his rantings and ravings and add their own comments. I will try to post a link to his blog soon, although it may be a few days before I get the chance, I think the blog site is sportsblogger.jake.blogspot.com it may just be sportblogger (w/o the "s"). If any one is interested!