How many toothbrushes does it take to brush 5 teeth?

All About Me

Here are pictures from Mother's Day a couple of weeks ago and my birthday last week.

My four pretty girls
I'm so blessed to have such wonderful children. I love being their mother.

Me and my girly-girls.

(When I saw this picture I was horrified to see how ridiculous I looked with a white skirt and black shoes. They're the only pair I have and I've always had dark skirts so I didn't think twice when the girls talked me into buying matching white skirts and wearing them on Mother's Day. Now I have to figure something else out before I wear it again. Any suggestions?)

On my birthday Nathan and the boys put new tubes in my tires and pumped them up. Bike rides are my favorite activity, so this was a welcome birthday present for me.

Going on a bike ride while the chicken enchiladas cooked--my choice of birthday dinner.

The quadruple chocolate cake I made while Nathan took the kids to buy my presents. Chocolate cake with chocolate frosting, chocolate covered sugar wafers, and chocolate chips. Delicious!

About 8 years ago I got a ziplock bag full of candles at a yard sale for 25 cents. After Nathan's birthday 6 weeks ago he asked if we could please splurge and buy a new box of candles. I happened to be at the store that morning and remembered so I got the cheapest box: 36 for 99cents. The kids were thrilled that there were enough for my age (32). So Nathan had to put them all on and light them, even though we usually just do a handful.

Amazingly I blew them all out in one breath. I don't remember the last time I did that, even when we only put a few on.

Outside Play

This was when the camera was still new and I didn't realize it was on a weird setting.

Alexis helping an "injured" Spencer to the ambulance.

Filling up the ambulance.

After everyone is rescued, it's off to the hospital. They sing "La la la, la la la la" to the tune of "Do You Know the Muffin Man?" as they zip through town. I love how much fun they have together and even include Kaitlyn.

Going to a fun park after violin and flute lessons nearby.

Thomas

Kaitlyn

Spencer bought a basketball with his own money on our spring mommy date and I found some clothes and shoes for him at a yard sale. He plays at the hoop in the cul-de-sac everyday during our lunch break, after school, and on Saturdays.

Why She's So Chubby

It's not my fault. Kaitlyn was born with a sweet and salty tooth. She knows the sound of someone taking off the lid to the Pringles can in the kitchen, she can sight a plate of cookies admist a buffet of healthy foods, she can smell chocolate hiding in my diaper bag and will pull out everything to find it. What can I say? She's a smart kid. Also a chubby one. Here are a few glimpses into her eating habits.

Eating a brownie during our girls night while the boys were at the Father-Son Campout.

Oops. Here's proof that she has some bad examples living in her house. It was a super fun girls night, though.

Eating a chocolate bunny my mom sent in my birthday package. Hey, there were 8 in there, so we thought we should share with her.

Going after the Sun Chips at a picnic.

Discovering an open container of snickerdoodles.

"These are mine. All mine."

Carrying them to the curb to wait for Daddy to bring the van to us.

Hey, how did these get in here? There is also proof that she occasionally eats decent meals.

Baby fruit and homemade chili.

Before she started solids I had plans to make her my healthiest eating child yet. Those plans have definitely failed but we love this chubby, doll faced baby. Her soft cheeks make her all the more kissable. We're so grateful she's in our family.

Stake Conference Family Pictures

Two weekends ago we had a fabulous stake conference with Richard G. Scott. Afterwards we had a picnic with other conference goers and enjoyed the wonderful spring weather.

Trying to assemble for a family picture. Notice the one on the right who wouldn't cooperate. I know you've never had a photo session like this, so you wouldn't understand.

The family photo minus the uncooperative one.

The fit-thrower.

(I thought it was funny how the friend taking the pictures captured one of us and one of him.)

My four sweet girls. How they love to match!

Seeing the ducks--what Spencer wanted to do instead of taking a picture. I love having conference on the coast.

Not a great picture, but here's my big sweetheart with my littlest sweetheart. He adores his little girl.

Alexis wanted her picture taken with the roses.

Trying out the new camera on Thomas

Our old camera was stuck on a close up zoom and wouldn't focus very well or view the pictures or delete. I was supposedly having a day off to run errands all by myself, so while I was at Target I looked at cameras. While I was talking to the salesperson, my "emergency" trac phone rang 3 times. Twice it was Nathan asking me where the trimmer line was for the edger and other things like that. The third call was from Kylie, asking me to come home because "All the kids are being bad and Daddy is mowing the lawn."

A note about him mowing the lawn: our riding mower is broken yet again and I want to go get a nice one that will suffice for this yard and the house we want with 20 acres. Nathan wants to wait until after we actually buy the house, if we do. In the meantime he wants to get a push mower, but I say no way! I pushed one of those our first summer here and got migraines from the exertion and heat. Our ditches are way too big and difficult for a push mower. To settle this, I told him to borrow one and see for himself. So that was why he was mowing the lawn that day. Ordinarily, I do all the mowing. So I should pick the mower, right? It took Nathan almost 2 hours (takes me 35 minutes) and he still wasn't convinced. But he didn't even do the ditches because they were full of water, so it wasn't a fair trial.

Back to my story, I was frustrated from being interrupted so many times and the fact that somehow the kids could not get Nathan's attention enough for him to come inside and take care of them. It was 1:00 and nobody had eaten lunch yet (they get super ornery if they don't eat by 11.) I was embarrased that three times I had to answer the phone in front of that nice salesguy. So when Kylie sounded desperate (although I knew she wasn't because she baby-sits plenty well, I just think she didn't want to), I grabbed the only camera on sale and it happened to be one of their cheaper ones anyway. Although I had been planning on buying a really nice one to last a long time, I didn't want to look at them any longer and I knew it would be awhile before I got back out to go camera shopping, so I just grabbed a $100 one. Funny that it's the cheapest camera we've bought in our 11 years of marriage and it's also the best. Twice the megapixels, memory, and other things than our last one.
It rained that afternoon so I tried it out on Thomas who was hanging out on the porch while the rest of the kids were out in the rain.