Merry Christmas!

Daylight savings...

How bout this for a bumper sticker; "I turned my clocks back and all I got were these bags under my eyes!" I know the saying goes that you are supposed to gain an hour of sleep when you "fall" back, try telling that to a 4 month old. Delia now thinks that 5:00 am is the new 6:00 am!! Ahh, that makes for a grouchy, cranky, sleepy mommy! :o) She wakes up for the day, ain't no feeding her and putting her back to bed. Then like clock work at about 6:00 am she gets sleepy, just in time for the two other to munchkins to be getting up. We are a Happy Family (as Claire starts throwing a hissy fit)!

Brilliant!!

So last night was our long awaited, well kept secret from March, little rendezvous to Hale Center Theater's Into the Woods. Oh my goodness, it was AMAZING! I was told by all who have attended there in the past that because it was a theater in the round, there were no bad seats. Well that my be true, but obviously there are some seats that are bound to be better than others. With that said, I dare say that we had some of the BEST seats in the house!! Curtain 2, Row 1 seats C&D! Yes that is right, this early March ticket purchasing bird, had bought FRONT row seats...and had forgotten that she did until Jason mentioned it upon picking up the tickets at will call. (go ME!!)

The set was awesome! I had no idea how amazing they could dress a stage/theater. Leaves, vines, trees surrounding you. The center stage rotated in two directions giving the illusion that the caracters were walking miles into the woods. The stage also raised and lowered, hiding and revealing the casts. A tower rose over on one side to house Repunzel, and a beanstalk grew on the other for Jack's adventure. AWESOME, truly it was! The cast was fantastic. Well played, amazing voices. Repunzel's prince was HILL-AR-IOUS!!!! A true actor whose facial expressions could have told his part without the use of his incredible voice. The witch was so spookily dressed, quite creepy, complete with the crooked nose and pronounced chin. Red riding hood, played the part so well and had the facial expressions that tied the prince for 1st place. I used all the power within to contain myself to my seat and resist the incredible urge to join them on stage and sing with them. Very fun and thariputic for me, but quite scary for the other paying theater goers. You see I am no "closet" fan of Into the Woods. I saw the VHS (hee hee) recording of the broadway preformance back in 7th grade English with Miss...oh her name just left me. I loved it, LOVED it, LOVED IT!! When I was at Ricks, now known as BYU Idaho, I wisely joind BMG (a cd purchasing club). I happened upon the orginal broadway soundtrack of it and could not resist the temptation, I had to have it for my own listening pleasure.

Over the years I would BLARE the cd throughout the house, singing with all restraints let loose, actions included. A true performance enjoyed by all...Lorenzo, Claire and of course Me playing the parts of narator, Cinderella, the baker, his wife, Jack etc...I must admit that over the last 17 years since first watching the musical at school, I have unknowingly ommitted a good part of the performance. You see, the dialogue was not a part of the soundtrack. When I secured the tickets, I was basing the 7:30 pm showing on a 1 1/2 hour performance (the run time of the cd) and thought we would be out at 9:00 pm and home between 9:30 - 10:00pm. Oops, my bad. We got out at 10:30 pm and home by 11:15 pm (including the 15 minutes it took to just get out of the parking lot!) Our babysitter Sadie was a trooper! Luckily all three kids were angels (cup hands together and insert ahhhhh here!)

I seriously could go on and on about the night and the performance, but I won't. Just if you do happen upon the chance to see this show, take the opportunity. If you happen to walk by my home and witness me skipping and singing off key through my home, please resist the urge to stare and laugh, just walk away...I'm simply starring in my own production of Into the Woods, and tickets are NOT available at the door! :o)

FYI...

I just noticed that a couple of new posts got bumped to "older posts" apparently I over blogged last night and prematurely aged some posts. I altered my settings and now they are back on the front page. I'm so nice :o) Make sure you scroll down and see "Halloween Day" and "4 months and counting!"

Shhhh do you hear that???

Oh yeah, It's Christmas music on the radio!! Is there a better sound than that? I think not! So I will take this opportunity to change my backgroud, yet again...enjoy!

Pardon my absence

I know many of you have missed me, and those of you that haven't, well probably don't even check my blog, so there you have it. Anyway this LONG post is dedicated for all you missers of ME!! So go raid your kids Halloween Loot and enjoy! Not that I do or anything!

Where have I been, you ask. I have been dusting off all my Mother of the Year awards and making room for 2008's! Oh, no wait, that wasn't me, never mind. The true answer would be actually quite boring so I will just move right along to the kids school Halloween Carnival.

School Carnival

Lorenzo's school had their annual Halloween Festival on October 3rd. We had a fun time again this year! We played the little games as usual, this year Claire won the "top prize" on three of them and walked away with a stuffed pink snake, blue alligator and fuchsia fuzzy dice! Lorenzo also won a "top prize" and chose a dinosaur figurine whose head and arms fall apart when you push a button, tre cool!! The kids had fun on the ginormous bouncy toys on the playground. This year the school sold individual tickets and "unlimited bands" that allowed you do go on the bouncy toys as much as you wanted so the lines were extremely long, so Lorenzo went on the skater slide once and Claire chose the bouncy house. Q: And what's a Halloween Festival without the cotton candy that is as big as your head? A: Don't know, because we all had one!! :o) I dressed Delia up in a warm snuggly Winnie the Pooh jammie thinking we would be outside a lot, we actually headed indoors after about 15 minutes, so the poor thing cooked in it and got very irritable toward the end of it. Can't say that I blame her!

Dwyers come to town

My sister Marianne and her family came to visit the second week of October from Omaha. It was great seeing all of them since it has been over 2 years since the last time we got to see them. Claire, Emily and Ashley had a blast with each other being princesses, playing house and being thrown in the air by Uncle Daryl. Lorenzo had a great time with Daniel Scott, even though he kept calling him Jacob, crazy kid!!

Sauerkraut Dinner

October 25 we went up to the Sauerkraut Dinner in Providence, UT. (just outside of Logan) Sheri had reserved me a booth there to take another stab at selling my cards, and flower clips. I don't know if you remember but I went a little overboard last year when I went to the Pumpkin Festival last October and made 50 sets of Christmas cards and then a couple hundred misc. cards and sold a WHOPPING none!! :o) So things could only progress this year right?!? And I am pleased to say that they did, we had a 100% increase in sales...for all you mathematicians out there that means we sold ONE whole card!! No one really sold much, except for the jewelry people. Oh well, at least I have a 10 year supply of Christmas cards. Why are you laughing? I'm serious! The dinner was so YUMMY the turkey practically melted in your mouth, the stuffing was awesome and the sauerkraut was...skipped by me, Jason loved it! There was an incredible balloon man there that could literally make ANYTHING!! Lorenzo had tazer gun made, Claire a princess crown and me, Jason surprised me with a turtle...a TMNT that is, I think it was Rafael. How thoughtful and romantic is he!! Oh, I forgot to mention that Jason and I shared a brainless moment together. We had our suitcase all packed with church clothes, toiletries, Delia's clothes etc... there it was packed and laying on our bed, and there it stayed, packed and laying on our bed. Oops! :o) We made due, borrowed clothes, luckily Sheri had 4 extra toothbrushes and all was well and a fun time was had.

Okay, you're almost done...you can do it!! Take a moment and restock your candy raid and come right back.

Happy Birthday Jason

Jason had hit the big 30 on Oct. 29th. I can't really tease him about being "over the hill", "half way dead" or any of those "old" jokes seeing that I beat him to the punch line last December. Oh well, welcome to the "other side" of the hill old man!! :o) I bought ticket to Hale Center Theater for Into the Woods back in March and was able to keep my grande mouth shut about the surprise for 7 months, I am so good at secret keeping! If any of you out there with a secret you are dying to tell, you've got a secret with me!! ;o)

4 months and counting

Miss Delia Grace turned 4 months yesterday. I CAN NOT believe how fast time has flown by since she was born. I must use the proverbal saying that I truly can not remember nor imagine life with out her. She is such a doll, an amazingly wonderful baby. She sleeps through the night, eats great and is so happy and fun!!! Finally I was given an "inocent by stander" rather than ANOTHER drama king/queen, I just pray I don't have to eat my words in the future!! She went in today for her 4 month well check and shots...Happy Halloween to Delia! She did great, she weighs 15 lbs and is 24 1/2" long. What a big girl she is!! We will be starting her on gourmet rice cereal in the next few days, YUM-O!!

Halloween day!

Now here we are, finally to today! Jason had the day off and spent it ripping out our chain link fence, at least on one side of the house. Our lovely HOA is starting to bug about our fence that has been up for YEARS and put in by the orginal owners 8 years ago...BLAHH!!! We also had a first today...wait for it...we carved our first pumpkin!! How LAME are we, married 8 years, have 3 kids and have never carved a pumpkin prior to today!?! It turned out quite cute and we may just repeat this activity in the future. See you can teach an old girl new tricks!! :o) I took the kids T or T'ing, first we stopped by our neighbors home for a little Twilight Halloween gathering. We had some yummy chili and treats and were off on our Loot collection. Lorenzo was a zombie ninja and Claire was a barbie maripoza princess courtesy of Gma Melanie's birthday present. Holy cow did they get a TON of candy, so much that I had to carry their bags because they were "TOO HEAVY" I think I earned a 20% commission if you ask me ;o)

Well, tomorrow starts the beginning of Christmas music on the radio!! Hall-le-lu-iah!!!

Our adventures in Providence...

On September 26th we headed up to Providence for Shaylee's 6th birthday party. We were able to take the new Legacy Parkway which made it smooth sailing! We got there about 5:45 pm and was able to have PIZZA and Yummy TREATS. Sheri's neices and nephews were over and the kids had a great time playing. Jason even ventured out and they all played Ghost in the Graveyard and KICK the CaN. A great time was had by all the "kids!" Claire, Shaylee, Rachel and Grandma Sheri STUFFED the pinata full of candy, I think it ended up weighing 10 lbs!! :o)

Jason, Delia and I slept out in the trailer. When we went to bed it was fine outside, but during the night temperatures DROPPED and poor Delia was not dressed effiently, but like a little trooper she still slept through the night even in the cold air and in her porta crib. We had fun the next day at Shaylee's party. The kids got spoiled with lots of candy, and cute party favors. They were able to decorate cupcakes that were made by Chef Kayson! The kids LOVED swinging in the GIGANTIC tree swing they have in the backyard. It was a great time in Providence!

It's the pits!!!

Claire is a little silly goose! She has this thing about "pits." She obviously knows what arm pits are, well her thought is, if arms have pits then legs must too! When she washes herself in the tub she always cleans her "leg pits" behind her knees. The other day Claire asked me, "what are these?' pointing to the corners of her mouth. I told her they were the corners of your mouth, she said "No, these!" pointing at the same place. I tried again with "skin? lips? mouth?" She promptly told me, "No, they are mouth pits!" So there you go, a bit of anatomy for you all! :o)

The magic of Photoshop

So as you can see by my changing background, and title header, I have rediscovered my love of computer graphics. I LOVED taking all of my art classes back in college and had forgotten the addicting and fun aspects of Photoshop. Now granted I am no pro and by all means I had bought Photoshop back in '98 so it is missing A LOT of the bells and whistles of the many, many, many newer versions. On that note, I hope you enjoy the different types of photos and such to come!

Our serene visit to a wide open field...

started out as a nightly T-ball game!

Ward camp out 2008!

Ward family camp out that is! We decided to have one last hoorah while the weather is decent. Please ignore the random house in the background, I promise we went to an actual campsite! :o) The kids had a BLAST, we roasted hot dogs and marshmallows over an open fire, by we, I mean Jason! Might I add that he is quite the open fire chef, thanks for the yummy dinner. Jason and the kids slept out in the tent, while Delia and I had our beauty rest in a civilized manner. We took video of the kids sharing their versions of scary stories. I have not been brave enough to watch them yet, after I muster up the courage to view them, I will share them with you our faithful audience. Side note, I have to also figure out how to upload them too! :o)

Eureka and Rip Van Delia !

Much like Claire, Delia never did take to a binky. I guess I will never get to make those cute little jeweled binky clips, so sad! :o( This brings me to the first part of the title; EUREKA. Without looking at the picture, I'm sure you can guess where I'm going with this.

*Just for the record she has not been given any nyquil, benedryl or any other sleep inducing medication!


I can hardly believe it myself, but little Delia has amazed me with her ability to sleep. I know by sharing her accomplishments I am jinksing myself into a sleepless night tonight! he he he Delia went to bed last night at 10:30 pm and got up today at NOON!!! I had to go in and wiggle her occassionally to make sure she was okay. She has taken really good naps today to boot. Can I just say how much I love this little bug! :o)

Olympics 2020!

Start saving your money now so you can watch this gymnast at the 2020 Olympics! :o) Claire started gymnastics last Tuesday and really enjoyed herself. About 10 minutes into the class she proclaimed her tiredness, but she persisted. I'm sure it is apparent that she has developed a new way of coping with new situations...check out the ends of her sleeves! YUCK!!! Her little friend Megan will be signing up for the same class, so that will be extra FUN! Claire got to learn the 7 starter positions of gymnastics and is demonstrating a few in the photos. She already got to take a stroll on the balance beam and got to enjoy the trampoline. Thank you Grandma Rene for helping make this possible. :o)

Our little princess!

I did a little photo shoot with Delia today in her blessing dress!
She looks like a little doll in her fancy dress. :o)

Delia's blessing

We blessed our sweet little Delia this past Sunday, September the 7th. We had so fun with all our family that traveled to be here. Thank you all that came to support our family and bless Delia. Jason's mom made the GORGEOUS dress that Delia was blessed in, and I used ribbon from my wedding bouquet to make her hair bow, what a beautiful little girl she was! Sheri was an amazing help and held Delia all through Sunday school and Relief Society! After the block of meetings we had a yummy dinner. I had made shredded bbq chicken sandwiches. I cooked the chicken the night before and was so excited to be able to use the NEW roaster I had gotten for Christmas. To my great disappointment upon plugging it in, it started smoking and being really stinky, an apparent electrical problem. I ended up using my two crock pots and all was well in the universe! :o) However I cooked WAY TOO MUCH chicken, after collaborating with my sister, we decided to cook 10 lbs of chicken, nope, no typo there, I cooked 10 lbs. Needless to say it ended up being 5 lbs too much!!! :o) I was able to freeze the extra so I have two I don't feel like cooking dinners now!

Birthday Bowling!!

This year we celebrated Dad's birthday at the Army Depot out here! We had it exclusively for 2 hours, which was AWESOME!! We had quite the BLAST!! The one bad thing about taking pictures while bowling is, if you want an "action" shot you have to take it from behind! Sorry folks! :o) We had a lot of fun and yummy munchies too. Claire couldn't get enough of my sisters guacamole, can you blame her? :o) I know Jason and Aaron really had fun bowling against each other, I think they are the only ones who actually looked at their scores. A few of the lanes were out of commission, they had a hard time returning the bowling balls, ANNOYING! My lane was very generous though and gave me a courtesy point for every gutter point, boy did those add up! ;o)

8 years ago today!!

What happened 8 years ago today? Jason and I got married!!! These last 8 years have FLOWN by! It has been FABULOUS being married to Jason and I can't wait for another 88 years! Well actually I can because I would be 118 years old! :o)

Today we went into Salt Lake and had lunch at the Cheese Cake Factory! Yummy!!! :o) My friend Liz watched the girls for us while Renzo was at school. We had a lunch date seeing that Jason is already off to school up at the U of U. I can't wait for him to graduate next fall!!

Strike that from the record!

So on Labor Day we went into my mom's and dad's for a bbq but we stopped by Mark and Melanie's before hand. When we walked in, Melanie said, "Hi Renzo, or should I say Isaac?" Renzo looked at me with a serious face and said, "You shouldn't have put that on the website." So I am officially striking the last post from the record...but it's too cute to actually delete!

Renzo has grown to like his name again with a little help from my friend Dianna. She shared that her husband, a police officer, works with a guy named Lorenzo. They have nicknamed him Snow for the same reason! After telling this to Renzo he said, "Coooool, I'm a police officer." All things are right in the universe again! :o)

The child formerly known as Lorenzo!

So Jason shared with me this conversation he had with Lorenzo the other day.

Lorenzo: "So Dad, I want you to call me Isaac from now on."
Dad: "Why, do you want me to do that?"
Lorenzo: "Because all the kids at school make fun of me, they call me Lorenzo Snow."
Dad: "That's a good thing, Lorenzo Snow is a good person, he was a prophet."

Lorenzo left not being too convinced! It seems like no matter how hard you try kids always find something they can tease people over. I guess I should just be impressed that at this age they know who Lorenzo Snow is!! :o)

First day of SCHOOL!!

In honor of the first day of school, I created this background, LOVE IT!! :o) So today is Lorenzo's first day of the 1st grade! He was so EXCITED to go, his buddie Oliver Grimes is in his class along with some friends from Kindergarten. His teacher's name is Mrs. Mason, she is new to the school, but I've been told that she is AWESOME!

Last night I was HORRIBLY sleep deprived!!! Delia woke up 3 times as opposed to her 1 time, and to top that off, Claire was up in the night with the FLU, AHHHHH!! I think in all I had 3 hours of sleep, not to mention that I am currently fighting a sinus infection. Oh well, life goes on!

Getting lost in a sea of people entering school.

Visiting Ms. Seiter (kindergarten teacher)

Lorenzo was more excited to show her his new shoes than to show her Delia!

Lorenzo at his desk, his friend Ollie sits right behind them...this could spell TROUBLE!! :o)

Sitting proudly at his new REAL desk, Mrs. Mason is in the black jacket.

Lorenzo showing Ollie the morning routine of writing the "popcorn" word of the day; today it is "the."

Making flossing EASY!!

(WARNING: Some photos are NOT for the faint of heart) :o)

So I realized that I never posted about Lorenzo losing his first tooth. Back in May Lorenzo single handedly pulled out his first loose tooth. He pulled it out right before he and Jason went to the father and son campout so he didn't loose it while camping. (pics to come later, I can't find them on the computer)

Today, Lorenzo pulled out his second tooth! It flew out of his hand and hid itself in the family room carpet. Luckily I was able to put in my eagle eyes and find it, only to have to later repeat the search as he managed to drop it again in his room! Needless to say that if he is wanting a visit from the Tooth Fairy, his tooth is OFF LIMITS!!

This background brought to you by the letter J!

So, pardon me while I toot my own horn. This cute picnic background has been brought to you by your's truly! Who knew I could cut my own hair and now create my own background, what will I discover next...oh the possibilities! :o)

Oh, and I have to share that I am now the Primary Choirister! I'm so excited, I've seriously ALWAYS wanted this calling! There is something just so special and exciting about the children's songs. If we were playing Go Fish I would yell "Got what I asked for!"

Playing catch up!

Not that I have the best of excuses for not posting more often, but alas I have finally taken the time to update you on our summer's adventures! Go pop yourself some popcorn, get comfy and enjoy the many posts.

Almost 7 weeks old!

It's amazing how fast time has flown since Delia was born. She is such a fun, cute, cuddly baby. We LOVE her so much!!! She is such a smiler, and very happy...as long as she is being held! Poor little thing had impetigo last Saturday which is a topical staph infection, it looked like really bad eczema but we couldn't clear it up. I finally took her into her doctor and got some anitbiotics for her and it cleared up in two days. When we took her in she weighed in a 11lbs 6oz which means she has gained almost 4 lbs in 6 weeks, apparently she is doing quite well! ;o)
We sure do LOVE this GIRL!

4th of July!

We had a fun 4th of July! We had a bbq and my mom’s and dad’s house. Aunt Bea brought a slip and slide that the kids had a BLAST on! Stacey’s dad and his wife Angie came from Louisiana to visit and joined us. The kids had fun with the annual firework display. Delia and I stayed in the house to keep her out of the smoke!

My crazy brother Dave thought it would be fun to let the kids throw those Pop-its at his bald head to make them pop. It sure did work, but it actually left burn marks on him! That didn’t seem to stop him from doing it again and again.

On the way home, my sister, Kathryn, and her family got in an accident. The traffic lights were out, leaving the back roads pitch black and they found themselves in the middle of the intersection and got hit by another driver that did not treat the area as a four way stop. It was quite the ordeal, but all in all everyone is fine and only Kathryn is left with some whiplash. Thankfully nothing more serious occurred.

Roasting marshmallows

Jason decided to build a make shift fire pit in our backyard. Now I'm sure you are thinking that we are nuts digging a hole in our lush green grass, well we tricked you! That is not lush green grass, but lush green WEEDS! The kids had fun roasting marshmallows, but boy was it too hot outside to stand around a fire. We will definitely be using this more as the weather cools off in the evenings!

The many owies of Claire:

I know that I mentioned that Claire got whacked in the eye with a 2x4 by my sister's neighbor boy while I was in the hospital with Delia, but I never posted pictures. How sad! :o(
Then on July 23rd, she and Lorenzo were playing in his room, when she started howling and balling and came in saying she hurt her head. She was not kidding!! There was a stream of blood pouring from her head and she ended up needing 2 stitches. We went to her doctor for the stitches and it ended up costing us $80+, the doctor's office billed the insurance $539 for 5 minutes worth of work, REDICULOUS!! It actually would have been cheaper for us to go to the ER!! Dumb insurance!

Major League Renzo

Watch our Major Leagues, here comes Lorenzo!! Lorenzo and a great time in T-ball this past summer, Jason had fun as the assistant coach too. Their team was the Kansas City Royals, coincidently enough Jason was sent to Kansas City for work and was able to get Lorenzo and pendant and some KC baseball magazines. Thanks to all the grandparents for coming to watch and support him, he loved performing for his fans! :o)

Blog problems

For some weird reason, Internet Explorer will not support our blog site any more. It always says operation aborted, we are trying to fix the error.

2 1/2 weeks later!!

Can you believe that Delia is now 2 1/2 weeks old? Time has definitely flown bye. She is doing great when we took her in for her 1 week appointment, it was actually at 9 days, she was up from 7 lbs 11 oz to 8 lbs 1 oz. Dr. Abarca was very impressed with her weight gain, he said that usually they like to see the baby back up to birth weight by 2 weeks and the fact that she has gained is great! She is really filling out, her little thighs are chunking up and she is getting a double chin, I think that this is the only time in life that these are good and welcoming things!! :o)

Lorenzo and Claire really love her, and at times are on the verge of smoothering her with loves. They have to always out do each other; if one gives her a kiss, the other has to give her 2, then the other has to give her 3 kisses and a hug etc... I'm glad that they love her so much, but at times it can get out of control!

I can only image she is thinking, "Man earth life is SCARY!"

She has so much dark fluffy hair!!