Spring Break

We decided to take the kids to St. Louis for a couple of days since things have been so stressful around here for so long. We got a hotel (with a pool of course) and spent 3 days seeing the sites.



The first day was the Science Center.




This was the the kids building the arch...Daisy was less than impressed with this activity, but in the end the boys were very excited that they were able to accomplish this HUGE task!




This is Ben standing on a glass block that looks over what used to be a highway. All that is there now if gravel and sand. This part of the science center is still open but it's just not same same without the cars passing underneath you at 90 mph. The kids still thought it was fun to be able to stand and jump on this glass and not fall through.







Zach and Tim got to fly a plane. Then Ben and Tim flew..... only kidding but it looks like it, huh? This was a painting on a wall. Then they had a flight simulator that they played with too.









This exhibit the boys just loved. Your supposed to say the color not the word. Its pretty hard...especially if you do it fast.










They next day we went to the Arch. I have lived in MO all my life and never been to the arch so I wanted to be sure that I took my kids.





The walk to the arch was kinda far. I was expecting there to be parking right beside it. It was good though.

Inside the Arch was a museum that we walked around in while we waited our turn to go up in the arch. One of the tracks had to be shut down so our 1:35 lift didn't happen until almost 4:00. It made for a long wait because we got there at like 10:30 and we hadn't eaten lunch yet and the kids were starving by the time we finally got done. Even with the long wait the kids enjoyed it.












The pods that take you to the top were extremely small and shaky. Daisy was very scared and didn't want to let go because she kept thinking that we were going to fall off.















This was up top. The boys thought it was the greatest thing being up this high. You could see all the way to the stadium. However, Daisy being Daisy would only walk if someone was holding her hand. It was kinda small quarters up there and it was sloped, so she had a hard time walking.






By the time this trip was over all of us were so tired and ready to be home in our own beds. The kids had so much fun. I hope that they remember this trip for many years to come.

Daisy's Birthday

Well she's another year older. I have been kinda slow at posting things lately. Daisy's b-day was back in Feb and I am just now posting it. Oh well that is just how things go some times.

Daisy got a Hannah.Montana shirt


the kids playing duck, duck, goose



blowing a cotton ball across the floor



Doll set from us

Ice cream cake

New apprentice

So I must say that I don't know if I have started anything or not but isn't this hilarious!!!. This is my brother and his daughter who is 4 cutting his hair. I started to buzz the back and we had done some fancy cutting up top when he decided to just buzz it all.

He had the brilliant idea to let her do some of it.

What can I say, she should be my apprentice. She ha so much fun doing this. Don't you love the tutu, and the beads. Getting his hair cut by the blingest hairdresser around.

Dan the Man

Ok Dan, do you think you can handle this??? This may be the cutest baby you have ever seen. If you play your cards right maybe we can meet up after your retirement and you can play with her.
Is this the cutest face you ever saw?
Daisy was dancing around like a fairy (hench the fairy costume) and kept saying "mommy, mommy take my picture"








Look at how cute and chubby this little face is, don't you just want to chew on her checks!!!









This is how it usually is when Ben gets home from work. The girls are awake and want their Daddy but as soon as they get on his lap he passes out.





One night we were trying to get some stuff done and Lilly just kept fussing so we stuck her in Daisy moon chair to see what she would do and she loved it. We loved it too cause she couldn't roll out of it she was stuck in it. She decided that if she was gonna have to stay in there she mine as well do something productive so she started chewing on her feet.




Look at how pretty those earring are, now she got BLING!!!








This one is all Daddy, he is feeding her and ice cream cone (can you believe it). I tried to take it from her and she about went mach 10 on me so I just let her finish it.







You talkn to me?








Daisy and Lilly in their jammies








The kids in their jammies

Pinewood.Derby

It's that time of year again. It seems like it was not to long ago that we were at district finals last year. Well we have good new to report this year. Tim won 1st place in speed. So looks like we will be going to districts again.

I feel bad for Zach he wanted to do so well this year. However, this was not the case. He finished next to last. He made a really cool looking car but as far as speed not so good.


The row on the bottom, 2nd car is Zach's, 3rd car is Tim's
These are all the cars from this years race.

Tim getting his car ready to race.

Zach getting his car ready to race.

All the boys after the race

I've Been Tagged

Well sorta, I was tagged in face.book but I don't like using it as much as blogging so I am going to do it here. I am supposed to write 25 random facts, things, goals or habits about me and then tag 25 people. Here goes...

1. I am obsessed with making my girls look "cute". I think it has to do with how mean kids were with me growing up so I think that if my girls look "cute" then other kids won't pick on them.

2. I was picked on as a kid....duh since I just told you about it in the previous list.

3. I want to move out of Missouri. I don't like living here, never have, and have wanted to, all my adult, leave. I have tried several times but things just don't work out and we end up staying here.

4. I have always wanted to be a mother/wife. I can remember being 14 and longing for children. Which is why at 16 I helped my sister deliver her 5th child. She was like my own. Only that she never went home with me and that I never feed her, never woke in the middle of the night to soothe her, you know all the fun things....=) but for a 16 y/o I thought she was as much mine as her mommy's.

5. I love the snow. I know you all are looking at me like I'm crazy but I really do. I don't mind driving in it and could live where there is lots of it.

6. I hate to be hot. I can't stand it. I start to sweat and then it I get all sticky and get all grossed out. I could never live in the south. Once I'm get hot it take me forever to cool down. Plus I have my dad's gene of being super sweaty. When my cousin and I used to play basketball in high school we were always the first to have wet shirts. GROSS!

7. I have the most wonderful husband. No not you Missy, me. Ben helps do everything. I can't seem to express enough how amazing he is. If there is a day I don't want to do something is ok with me not doing it and then does it himself. He plays with the kids instead of sleeping or will take care of them so that I can take a nap instead of him. He works like a dog. Bad analogy made like a mustang or mule something that actually works a lot and really hard. He does his callings without complaining. There much more to him besides that but I need to move on.

8. I love spicy food.

9. I would love to go to overseas someday. Some place like Italy, France, Germany, or Greece. I have family in Germany and a friend in Greece so if we were to go some where it would probably be one of those two.

10. I can't wait till our kids are grown so that Ben and I can go on a mission together. He never went and I had kids by the time I was old enough to go.

11. I love the feeling I get just after a session at the temple and you have no worries. The world seems to be a peace.

12. I would love to do platform work one day. This is something hairdressers do at hair shows. You teach or show new technichs to those at the hair shows on a platform.

13. I always want different hair. I am never happy with the way my hair looks. If I could just wake up everyday with something different I think I would be happy.

14. I love chocolate. Not the expensive stuff just the everyday kind of stuff like sni.ckers, m.ms, or do.ve. That's just cause I'm cheap.

15. I enjoy taking photos.

16. Fall is my favorite time of year. I love how the trees change colors and everything is full and pretty.

17. I am the least judgemental person you will know or meet. Everyone has a story and a life and just because you have gone throgh something doesn't mean you are bad/good/ whatever. No judgements it not up to me....

18. I wish I had the will power to throw out our tv's. I must say I enjoy it and unfortanuatley it takes presidence a lot more then I would like for it to.

19. I do not have my tonsils or my gallbladder.

20. I have had natural child birth 4 times. Well with the help of pitosen (if you call that help)

21. I was born in Mexico...... gotch ya.... Missouri

22. I would like 3/4 more kids if my sanity holds out that long. Oh lets not forget my body.

23. I can lead music but don't know how to play the panio.

24. I love the sound of my kids laughing, really laughing.......you know the one where they are not fake laughing but full on belly laughing.

25. I have to prove that I can do things. If someone says I can't do something then my goal is to prove you wrong. I know kinda sick huh.

Anyway now for the good stuff. There won't be 25 people but here are the names, Laurel, Cassie, Tamera, Jen, Missy, Katrina, Nora, Mom, Denise, Allison, and anyone else who reads this post who blogs.

*Cassie that means you actually have to update your blog =-)

Timmy's 9 (wahaha)

Tim turned 9 on Saturday. Can you believe it? Time is going to fast. I, for some reason, seem to get ambitious when it comes to his parties.

We asked Tim what kind of party he wanted and he said Bak.ugan. I think to myself that's ok I can handle that. Little did I know that there is nothing bakugan out there except the toys. So I made his invitations (not proud of those at all), made his cake, made the posters for the gift bag. Ugh, what was I thinking. All this and trying to get things together for r.s. activity on the same day, again what was I thinking.



This is how the cake ended up but it was not what I was planning. I had planned on making a game board (shown on the floor with the kids around it) but when I went to put the second layer on the cake it just fell to pieces. Mind you I was in the middle of finishing things off for relief society too and I about fell to pieces when this happened. Thankfully, mom came over and helped me finish it or else we would have had one really skinny, lop sided cake and lots of broken cake for his party.



Then I made cupcakes for the kids to take home as part of their party favors. Each cupcake had a candy chocolate bakugan on top of it. I made these by hand. Everything on the cupcake is eatable. If you ask me they look more like ducks but Tim liked them so I guess that is all that matters. (If you take the head off the character it look more like a bakugan) I made 18 of these. My hands were purple and blue for almost a week trying to make these.



I had the kids try to suck smarties up a straw and move them to another bowl. It was funny watching them suck so hard and only get 1 smartie at a time.

Then we played bakugan upset. Much like fruit basket upset, but instead of fruit we used bakugan charaters. I think they had the most fun with this one because they could get up and run and knock each other out of the chair and not get in trouble.

We played this for almost 20 min. They didn't play the smartie game but like 3 times but this they could have played the whole time.

After the games I had them do a scavenger hunt to find the birthday cake. I purposly made them go from downstairs/upstairs and upstairs/downstairs. If the clue was upstairs the next clue lead them downstairs. I had hoped that the clues would take them a lot longer to figure out but they had them solved before they even read the whole card. So I had to stand in the doorway to keep them in the room before they would run out so they could here the whole clue. This took all of 5 minutes. So we had to fill the time with other stuff.

They did a small battle before everyone left.

Things were getting a little slow the last 30 minutes because they did everything so fast that Ben pulled out the fart cd and stared playing it and the boys went wild. They were laughing so hard they could hardly stand up.



Look at how red Manson's face is, he was just busting a gut.

One of the things I had the kids do was decorate their own cupcakes.

I think they were pretty creative.



I have to tell you I just love this little guy. He comes from a really good family and I just love him to pieces. He crackes me up all the time. You think he is this quiet little boy until you get him talking and he has the funniest things to say.



Lilly even got in the party fun if you look real close you can see a package of smarties in her hand. She sucked on it forever, well, until I took it from her.

Ben's one year older

Ben had his birthday on Monday so I have to post before we get to Tim's.
We just had a small day. The kids were home from school so we didn't get to do to much. We did the traditional cheesecake breakfast in bed and then brought him his presents. He got a stereo that he can use his i.pod on. He seemed to be pretty happy. Oh lets not forget (for Tom's sake) he got twinkies too. Then we took him to Tequilla's. Its a really good mexican restaurant in town. Then came home and took a nap and then he had to go to work.




Ben opening his gift


So excited to see what he got


Yum, yum cheesecake and mountain.dew, breakfast of champions


Daisy always has to be there when you have gifts or food


So I have to explain the cake. I have been experimenting with rolled buttercream (it's like fondant). So I decided to use it for Ben's marvin the martian cake but had a hard time getting the bottom half of the cake out of the pan so it was all torn and ripped. He decided it was just fine the way it looks there but I wasn't, but didn't know how to fix it giving the coditions and that I was tired and since he was happy just gave up. If you look real had you can get the outline of marvin.

I have to tell you that I am completely in love with my husband. He is the best man on the earth. I am so glad to be married to him. I am so thankful for his willingness to do what is needed for our family to make it work smoothly. I am thankful that he never gave up and that he continues to fight everyday. I am thankful that he has a mother who taught him well and who is so loving that he knows how to treat me and our kids. I would post as many reasons why I love him as he is old but dang he's old (32) only kidding. I love you and count the days that we have been together, and anxiously wait for all the rest of the days we will spend side by side.
HAPPY BIRTHDAY SWEETIE!!!

Busy, Busy, Busy

We have been extremely busy since my last post and since I am having issues with our sd.card I don't have photo to post from Christmas yet. So I thought I would just give a brief summary.

Christmas Eve: we went to my sisters house and had a fun night helping a family in need who had lost their mother that year. The children in that family have children my kids age so it was good for them. Did a Chinese gift exchange for the kids and it was great. I think even the missionaries had fun.

Christmas Day: we opened up presents and made fun pancakes for breakfast. Overall it was a good Christmas. That afternoon we went to G-ma/G-pa Van's for Lunch with the family and do something we have never done before. NO presents. Of course there we present for the grand kids but nothing for the adults it was kinda nice to not have to worry about it. We did however have a Chinese gift exchange with stuff from your house that you didn't want. It was well played by all. We gave shampoo stuff and there were fights for that and a movie and cd. It was fun.

New Years Eve: Ben was working and the boys were at g-mas so it was just the girls at home we were kinda boring. Daisy fell asleep before 10 and Lilly was out by 10:30. I was up after midnight but nothing special just watched a movie. The boys stayed up late w/ g-ma and aunt Jen blew horn, shot off confetti and shot silly string. They even had sparkling grape juice. Essential for those who don't drink.

January is usual a slow time for most people but at our house it is just as busy as December because we have two birthdays. Ben's is on the 19th and Tim's is on the 24th. I have been busy planning Tim's party and trying to get stuff ready for that and still do stuff for Ben all the while holding a chunky baby on one hip. I must be crazy but this year I am going to make Tim's b-day cake. Mind you this is no easy feat. He wants a bak.ugan cake and since no one has anything bak.ugan I am having to do everything all on my own. All those years of cake decorating are beginning to pay off. Well sorta! =) We will see next week if his cake turns out.

Lilly has started to teeth and has probably gain 50lbs! Not really on the weight but man is she heavy. If I had to guess she is about 2olbs or more. Like I said earlier she is chunky!!! We take her later this week for her 4 mo appt. (I know, I know its late) so we will see then just how chunky she really is.

Daisy is having a hard time lately. All she wants to do is watch tv. She doesn't want to do anything we ask her to do. She has been doing a lot of screaming and tantrums. However, on the other side she loves to make Lilly laugh. She does whatever she can to make her laugh. She will even fall down. Most Lilly laughs when she sees Daisy hair flying around but sometimes she will laugh just because Daisy is laughing.

The boys are back in school and spent all of their break at g-ma/g-pas house with aunt Jen. They worked on scout stuff and of course played lots of video games. It has been kinda hard to get them back in the swing of things but they are getting there.