{TOP 5} Tuesday!

After spending almost a week relaxing in the Arizona sun, it was a little depressing to come home to the cold dreary weather in our valley. I couldn't believe the snow that was falling when I was driving home from the grocery store last night!

So my 'TOP 5' for today is...the 'TOP 5' signs that spring IS coming- even in the Wood River Valley!

“If we had no winter, the spring would not be so pleasant: if we did not sometimes taste of adversity, prosperity would not be so welcome.”
Anne Bradstreet

#5- I am wearing shoes w/o socks! (Ok, who am I kidding I do this with 3 feet of snow on the ground! What can I say, I would wear flip flops year round if I could.)


#4- (This one is gross, sorry) An entire winters worth of little tiny doggie poopies are appearing all over the backyard. Time to get out there with my shovel!


#3- Why is it in this valley that there can still be snow all over and everything is dead, yet in the middle of it all little green WEEDS start popping up all over?!?


#2- Kallie is not wearing her snow pants ALL day long EVERY day! She puts them in her backpack to she can put them on if she needs them!


#1- GRASS!!! It's ugly and it's brown...but I can see it! Yay!



“The day the Lord created hope was probably the same day he created Spring.”
Bern Williams

Picture Day!

They are having a picture day today at Kallie's school. She picked out a dress, we curled her hair and she was practicing her smiles. Then she asked, "Mom should I keep my nose holes open during the picture?"


I think she's cute with her nose holes open or shut...either way :)

Happy Easter!!!

We hope you all had a wonderful Easter! We were traveling home from Utah today and didn't even make it to church- sad! Even Catholics go to church on Easter Sunday, what is wrong with us? So I'll have to take pictures of my girls in their Easter dresses another day.

Here are a few pictures from an Easter egg hunt at Dan's mom's yesterday. My girls had a ball and grandma spoiled the kids rotten. (Good thing Dan's a dentist so he can fix our teeth.)

I love Easter!

Kallie and Syd (and of course Dan) and all their loot!

Cousin Bridger, he's so cute I want to steal him!

The Easter Bunny left jelly beans all over grandma & grandpa's basement. The girls had tons of fun finding them. They had even more fun when grandpa came down and helped them find all the ones they had missed. The Easter Bunny was pretty creative this year!

And during the search for Easter Baskets and jelly beans, I was being a lazy bum laying on the couch in my pajamas all curled up in a blanket. Sydney came up to me and rubbed my head and said, "You poor old hag." (Any of you seen Enchanted lately???) I laughed my head off because sometimes I really do feel like one! :) So...Happy Easter from an Old Hag!

Cousins!

Kallie & Sydney LOVE their cousins! Hanging out with them is all they want to do when we go to Utah. We stopped in Utah for a few days on our way home from Arizona.

We went out to dinner for Andrea (my sis) birthday. Here are grandma & grandpa with ALL of their grandkids...aren't they lucky!!!

Joslynn & Sydney thought dipping french fries in their chocolate shake was yummy!

After dinner we all went and saw the play "Amelia Bedelia". It was very cute and Kallie and Syd were excited because they got Amelia's autograph after the play (I'm sure it will be worth money someday)!

On Saturday we went to Caden's baptism. What a handsome boy!

I ran in to Down East while my fam waited in the car. My girls find ways of entertaining themselves...wuz up?!?

I'm so glad we live close enough to go see our family regularly, what would we do without them?!?

Goodbye!

A humongous thanks to the entire Jensen family for letting us crash your house for spring break! You are such great hosts and we had a WONDERFUL time! You can just plan on us for next year too :) Thank you, Thank you, Thank you! We Love you!

A Perfect Day!

Yesterday we had so much fun! We took a picnic to the park and flew kites. The weather was beautiful (and no, I'm not rubbing it in because I am well aware of the fact that my days in the sun are almost over :(!

Sydney on the slide.

Kallie got her kite up right away- she said she wished she could fly into the sky WITH her kite!

Poor little Syd ran and ran but for some reason her Barbie kite would not take flight. Diane, Spencer and I all took a turn trying to get it up and none of us had any success. It must have had a defect- or the people holding the string do! But it was not for lack of trying!

Syd needed a break from all the running!

Diane and Samuel taking it easy.

Thanks Diane for a fun day, and thanks Mark for keeping the kids at night so we could go shopping at the mall! A Perfect Day :)

My Kids True Love!

These kids would swim all day every day if we let them! We were glad that it was warm enough (sort of) yesterday to take the kids to the pool...they had a blast!!!

Sydney, Spencer,Samuel,Kallie

Kallie Ann

Sydney Rae

Now this is a cool pool!

Samuel playing in the sand beach that leads into the pool.

PS- This counts as my TOP 5 for the week (I am posting 5 pics after all)...wish you were here!

You know you're not in Idaho when...

You know you're NOT in Idaho when very sweet smelling orange tree blossoms are in bloom right out your front door.


You know you're NOT in Idaho when Syd asks, "Are those REAL palm trees?" And when I tell her that they are she asks, "Where are the coconuts?"


You know you're NOT in Idaho when babies come in twos!


You know you're NOT in Idaho when there are cactus huggers instead of tree huggers.


As you can see we have arrived in Phoenix to visit Diane and her cute family! We are so excited to be here and we are happy to have a few days to relax. The weather was cold today but the forecast looks promising for the rest of the week...swimming pool here we come (white bodies and all)!

Can't Do Withouts!

My friend Maren posted an "absolute can't do without list" on her blog and it got my little pea brain thinking about all of the day-to-day luxuries that make life sooooo much better. I've been jotting down things here and there as I think of them, and while I'm pretty sure I COULD do without them if I had to...these things are sure nice to have around in my little world:

(In no particular order)

*Hand Lotion- I am a little obsessed, I can't function w/ dry hands!

*Treadmill & Asics- we have a love/hate relationship.

*Quickbooks- I shudder to think where Wood River Dental would be w/o this program.

*Acne Free Face Wash- will I ever be too old for zits?

*Book of Mormon Made Easier- One day I will be a scriptorian. (It might be in my next life though).

*Computer w/ high speed internet- I was without it and I'm glad it's back :)

*Dyson Vacuum- never go without one!

*Knee pillow- can't sleep w/o it, I even take it when we travel.

*Unlimited long distance & Caller ID- So I can talk to whomever I want for however long I want to.

*Drive thru at the bank- if only the post office would get one too!

*Nordstroms bra- makes you look like you have a little even if you don't.

*Target- enough said!

*Wednesday lunches w/ my friends!

*Cell phone- how did we function w/o them?

*ANYTHING sweet- skip dinner for all I care.

*PetSafe bark collar- it only works part of the time, but it still helps!

And last but not least...

*Photoshop- and a kind sister who answers my thousands of questions w/o complaint!



(Sorry Maren, nothing labeled "Ideal Breeding Material", maybe on my next list :)

What's on your list?!?

Happy Birthday to Sydney!

Sydney's birthday was exactly one week ago, so I figure better late than never and I fully blame my computer problems for the delay. Here are a few photos of the little celebration!!!

5 Years old...are you serious?!?

The first birthday cake I didn't make myself :( Notice the nice finger swipe in the middle, frosting is just too tempting (even when you're 5)!

Balloons from Atkinsons, and when you get hi-float in them they last FOREVER!!! I'm sorry if I ever send a balloon home with your child that gets stuck in your vaulted ceiling and doesn't come down for two weeks!

Make a wish!

I think you will all agree, this kid is cute!

And I'd like to personally thank Jeni for the "body stamp" which was more like a "body sharpie". Let's just say that Syd's preschool teacher asked, "WHAT happened to YOU?!?" It does come off eventually :)

{TOP 5} Tuesday!

This 'TOP 5' was really for last week, but then my computer died and I never got these posted. These are some of my 'TOP 5' favorite pictures of Syd (since it was her birthday last week and she turned 5 years old). I had too many to choose from and probably every time I look at them I would pick 5 different favorites...it was a hard decision!!! And even between these 5 I couldn't pick my favorite, so I'm having a vote. The one that gets the highest votes it the TOP of the 'TOP 5'. Some of these pictures I picked because they were cute, and others I picked because they made me laugh. Enjoy and happy b-day (late) Syd!!!

#1-

#2-

#3-

#4-

#5-

I can't believe my baby is 5!

Yeah, I'm back!!!

In case any of you haven't noticed, my hubby and I have been having a little bad luck lately. First our roof leaking, then our freezer dying, and the latest...our computer TOTALLY died! I'm talking we went to Best Buy and bought a whole new hard drive. Luckily my pictures were all saved to an external hard drive so they are safe. So now I am back up and running and hopefully bad luck comes in 3's and now we're done!

Dan and I got to spend the weekend in Vegas at a Mercer Training Meeting with some of his staff. We were in meetings ALL day and believe me, my buttocks was tired of those conference room chairs! It was a great meeting and we all learned a lot, and although some of the changes at the office that need to be made are not fun, I feel like the things they taught us will be for the best in the long run.

Here are a few photos from our trip:

We stayed at the Venetian Hotel, here is the hallway coming off of their main lobby.

The view out our 7th story window. I told Dan it looked like the 'Great and Spacious Building' and unfortunately we were IN it!

Dan and Jared & Maren in a little plaza INSIDE the hotel, it totally looks like you are outside. This was the closest thing to sunlight we saw for days!

We went and saw Phantom of the Opera with the Hills. It was excellent!

This is Imtiaz, the main speaker at the meeting. They gave out Pooh Bears to anyone who was pregnant or wanted to be pregnant. And they said that the rumor is that if you have Imtiaz kiss your bear it will bring you good luck! So of course I had him kiss my bear only to have it stolen right off my chair in the conference room. That can't be a good sign to have the lucky bear swiped :(

And finally, right before heading for the airport, we had our first visit to In-N-Out. I've never been in a fast food restaurant that has a line that starts at the door and goes the length of the building and across the front to the cash registers. It was crazy! All Dan could say was that they weren't charging enough for their burgers!


Overall we had a great trip! Thanks to my Mom, KayLynn and Dan's Mom for helping out with the girls. We really appreciate it!

HELP!

My computer is having MAJOR problems...I'm out for a few days :( Check back later!

I'm In!!!

I've heard such mixed reviews about Twilight that I'd almost chosen not to read it. But then I decided I should probably read it for myself and then decide how I felt about vampire books. And my opinion is...I really liked it! I thought it was a fun, easy read that captures you from page one! I don't know if I'm in love with Edward, but I love his character and how kind he is! Yep, loved it!

I can't wait for the movie to come out because I know we're going to have the best girl's night ever on opening night!

Now I just need to go to Amy's and get the other two books :)

Frustration!

This is my camera that ran out of batteries during Kallie's parent visiting day at Ballet.

These are the two pictures I got of Kallie before my camera totally died.


This is the battery charger we stopped at home to pick up before our trip to Boise. This also happens to be the battery charger for my OTHER camera, NOT the camera I had with me :(

These are our sad faces because we don't have any photos of Sydney's little birthday celebration in Boise. We stayed at a hotel and the girls swam their little hearts out. We also went to PoJo's where Sydney won 300 tickets on the Sponge Bob game! Then lunch at Red Lobster and home. You'll have to imagine all of the cute memories I could have captured if only I had grabbed the right charger...uggghh!