Maybe a Mousekatool can Help...

So, you know when your children watch too much TV when....

We were at the doctor's for James and were in a room painted with dinosaurs. There was a Triceratops head on one of the walls sticking out and Sam kept calling to it, "Triceratops, Triceratops..."
Then he looked at me and said, "he can't hear us."
I said, "nope, he's just pretend."
Sam wasn't having any of that and said, "I know, maybe a Mousekatool can help."
I started laughing and said, "maybe. What do your say?"
He looked excited and said, "Oh Toodles!"
He was very disappointed that Toodles didn't come and said, "He can't hear us. Toodles is far away."

Sad I know, but also very cute! :)

Valentine's Day Retreat

We had a great Valentine's Day at Bear Lake. It was definitely time to get away and boy was it wonderful. We love to go to Bear Lake in the winter because it seems so barren and beautiful with all the snow.
We took our friends Dave and Aymee and their kids with us for the fun long weekend. We just played games, watched movies, stayed in our jammies, and relaxed. I was able to get out with Sam a little bit. He loved playing in the snow and sledding. I wish we would have gone out more but it was VERY cold and we got a lot of snow. Poor James had to stay in because he got really sick while we were there. I got a little worried about him but couldn't go much about it until Monday because we got snowed in!
There was so much snow and so many people there snowmobiling, 4 wheeling, and sledding that it packed the snow on our hill so much that we couldn't get out. We were about there for about 2 hours trying to dig out some tire tracks for us but we just couldn't get up the hill. Finally a neighbor came out and towed us up. We were so grateful.
So needless to say we got home late Monday night and the whirlwind of real life quickly came upon us. Seth off to work, me running to the doctor for the boys, cleaning and unpacking, my Primary Meeting.....
Vacations no matter how long or short and was end so abruptly!

Here's some pics from the trip:

Cute Sam stuck in the snow. I went to go save him not thinking it was too deep because he is so light and didn't sink down. Needless to say I had to run put my legs in warm water because I definitely am not too light and I DID sink through! :)

Here's the boy's cute little Valentine's Day buckets. It is so fun to get into the holidays more now that Sam gets it.

I love this shot. Not only does it show our set up so everyone can do their own thing, but you see it all. Seth and Dave at Nintendo. Aymee and I on the big screen playing the Wii and James in the background watching a DVD on the laptop! :)

My boys aren't spoiled or anything! Look at each of them with their own laptops.

Poor James was so sick he would just fall asleep where ever. Notice the bubbles in the picture. James loves bubbles so much and had to have them in hand all weekend.

Pizza Night and Visiting Teaching Messages

We had a fun family night with some great friends. We had Melynn and her kids (Kayden, Makian, Kaleb) and our neighbors Dave and Aymee over for homemade pizzas. It was a blast. It had been way too long since we'd had people over.
We had a great time making individual pizzas and then a great Family Night lesson on the important of taking care of our bodies and the Word of Wisdom.


This fun night, plus the great Visiting Teaching Message for the month brought back a lot of fond memories from my childhood. I was remembering all the traditions I had as a child.
Each meal we would have to wash our hands before dinner and our dad would smell them to see if we used soap. They sometimes we would earn a quarter if we didn't talk the whole meal. I would have to stay at the table until I ate all my food. I remembered sitting at the table for hours because I wouldn't eat my spinach! And before we could be excused we would have to look at our Mom (at one head of the table) and say, "Thank you for the meal." Then look at our Dad (at the other head of the table) and say, "May I please be excused?"
And who ca forget the candle at each meal. It could only be blown out when my dad said "3". It was always a great game of tricks, other languages, ways to get him to say it without realizing....and if you blew out the candle before he said "3" you had to do the dishes.
It was so fun to think about all these fun little things I remembered. It made me so grateful for my parents and all they did for me. I am espcially grateful to my mom who always cooked. It's nice to look back in my mind and only remember eatting homemade meals at a table that was always full of my family.

Sam's First Time Ice Skating

Well, we finally did it! We got Sam on the ice for the first time. Needless to say he was very excited about it! Seth finally had a good hockey game time yesterday so we were able to enjoy watching him play and then hang out a little longer to take Sam skating.


It was so cute to see Sam get so excited about skating on his "Hockey Skates" like dad does.

I obviously don't have the skills of how to really tighten hockey skates yet...

because Grandpa had to fit them. It was fun to have Grandpa M there to share in the fun.

James got into it too. We weren't quite ready to have him out there too, although he wanted to be. He did get to have some fun in the stroller though and enjoyed the speed.


I couldn't decide what little video to upload, so here they all are. A progression of his ability to glide on his skates.
At first he couldn't even stand up.

Then he just wanted to run.

Then he got the idea of how to glide.

And that turned into getting a little lazy and loving having Dad do all the work!

This was definitely a fun night, but our backs were definitely tired at the end of this whole experience.

Bed Head

James has some of the best bed head I've seen since the days of living with my brother Jon. He's even cute with crazy hair! This was right before church, you should have seen me trying to comb this down!

Galactic Battle

Seth is always so great to set up big armies of his Star Wars figures for the kids to destroy. Seth has fun setting it up and the boys love destroying it. It is the perfect combination.

Here's a little of how I have to clean up after a ground battle. Mom always gets stuck with the clean up! :)

Here is the ULTIMATE BATTLE downstairs on our ping-pong table. This is every figure he has (minus the two we found later under the stove from the previous battle). It is pretty impressive.


I had to video it too to get the full impact! :)

Pizza for Karen....$10.61

Chinese food for Seth....$10.25
Junkfood run to the corner gas station....$9.67

Making a pregnant woman happy....PRICELESS!

The First 5..... (closed)

Let me explain....I took part in a little crafty pass along my friend did. It goes a little like this:

The first 5 people who comment on this post will receive a little hand-made something from me within the next week or two. But here's the catch, you have to be willing to do it yourself.

This is what a got from my good friend. It's a cute little cupcake stand. I love it.


So have fun, comment, and I don't know what I'm making you yet, but I'm sure you'll love it...and until you get it, you can be thinking what crafty goody you will be passing along!

Boys and Trains and Tape

I love these boys. They are becoming such great friends and I love it. I just had to get a shot of them hanging out together in my big chair. They are so cute!


We have been experimenting with new track formations. It was been really fun. I love the hill we came up with to go from the table to the ground. It really shot the trains down the hill. I think I liked it more than the boys did, although Sam was very excited that we got to use some tape to help hold it together. Tape is his solution to anything right now....making truck and trailers, broker toys, ripped books, broken crackers....

Bangs

Well, I finally did it. I cut bangs. I tried this back in July, but didn't fully commit and they looked terrible. So Saturday I got bored and decided to try it again and fully commit. I cut my own bangs! They aren't perfect, and I'm sure anyone who's a hair stylist looks at them and gasps, but I like them. It's fun to have a new look and try something new. After all, hair grows, right?! :)

I LOVE Church

This last week at church was great. I have been going through a really strong desire to study and read my scriptures and lessons for Sunday. It has been wonderful. I have made it a goal to keep up on Sam's Sunbeam lessons so that I can talk with him about what he is learning and reinforce it. I have also been reading a nursery lesson each week and planning it as my Family Night lesson. Seth has always really been good about getting our lessons read for Elder's Quorum and Relief Society, but I haven't ever done my reading and studying for Sunday School...that is until now.
This year we are studying the Old Testament and believe it or not I am VERY excited about it. I feel like the Old Testament is so foreign to me because it's not scripture that I can jsut sit down and read. I have to really study it and link it with other standard works and modern revalation.
Our ward just called a new teacher and he is amazing. He's the type of teacher that you always wish for because you can tell he prepares, knows his stuff, relys on the Spirit and sticks to the scriptures.
Well, I sat by my new good friend Melissa, who was just baptized this last year and I learned a lot from her. She too had her scriptures out, her lesson guide, and pen. Wow! I thought. Here she is just a "new" member and she knows better than I do how to prepare. I was so grateful I had prepared and that she was able to teach me a great lesson that day. How quickly we forget what's really important and how we should be using our time!
So class was the best I've been to in years. Even though the teacher didn't read all that was assigned, he talked about what we should be getting out of the lesson. It was so nice to know what he was talking about and to be able to contribute because I was prepared. And because I was prepared I was able to gain spiritual knowledge and confidence. That was the best part.
After class I had a few comments about what perspective I had. While this was a compliment, it was a little odd too because I knew that it was just me expressing what I had learned from preparing for the lesson. I know I have gained a lot of knowledge this last week and I want it to continue, so I have to continue to prepare. After all, if ye are prepared, ye shall not fear.

Another fun thing happen on Sunday. I don't know why this always happens, but it seems like all ward choristers go through a phase of wanting to sing Hymns that are not well know. Well, that's what happened. Out closing Hymn was a doosy! I am usually really good about singing even if it's not familiar to me, but I gave up after the first verse. Then Seth and I looked up at the Bishopric and all 3 of them and the High Council rep were all up there repressing giggles and trying to sing. It was so funny. We got their attention and didn't help the fact. It was a fun moment of sillynees together!

You're onry. Make a Treat.

That was more or less what my sweet husband said to me on Sunday.
I was onry. I didn't mean to be. It just kind of happened.
So I did what needed to be done. I made a yummy treat
(My mom gave me for Christmas a "Quick Treat Kit." It was amazing. She is so inspired!).

I know for my New Year's Resolution I said I would not eat sugars or desserts, but I think I need to revise that. I need to eat them VERY sparingly and in moderation. I know that sounds funny, but that's a very hard thing for me.
So here's to hoping this sugar blast helps keep my spirits high! :)

My Little Stars

Star Wars Fest 2010

We're having our first annual M/C Star Wars Marathon. I am sitting here tired as can be and we are only half way done. It's actually been very fun. We've had late nights, fun times, good treats, and we've learned a lot as Seth has been "educating" us on all things Star Wars.
The week has also been complete with a PowerPoint presentation I helped Seth put together about the original Jedi Council members (I can guarantee that is a sentence I would have never said in my life had I not married Seth!). :)

I even built all my Star Wars Mr. Potato Heads for the event! :)

The True Story of Mr. and Mrs. WAM

I just had to get out!
For the first time in literally years I was bored.

Yesterday was a long day. The boys felt it too. So when I got going today I decided to do something about it.
We went to "Grandma's House". Seth's mom wasn't around so we hung out with "Grandpa". It was such a fun day. I love my father-in-law so much. The boys had a great time playing trains with him in his newly "remodeled" train room (Mom M decided to relinquish her dining room to the boys and their trains). Dad M just talked and hung out with me all day. He even took me and Sam out to lunch while James and Mom M took naps.

It was a great time. He of course chose to eat at what he knows to be one of my favorite places to eat....The Cheesecake Factory. It was so da-lish. (I had their new Caramel Chicken-it's to die for)
We had such a good time talking. I learned of his Home Teaching experiences that are near and dear to him and it let me see more into his sweet soul. I then asked him to tell me about how he and Seth's Mom met, since I for some reason had still never heard the story.

It was a great story. It was even better to see and hear him talk about the story and the way he looked and spoke when speaking of Mom M.
Bill (Dad M) worked for a movie theater in Provo to pay his way through BYU. During the summer he was to go up to Idaho to cover for the theater manager there who was going on vacation for a week.
His first day there he saw "a beautiful little blond in a mini-skirt taking tickets" as he tells it. He said she was the most beautiful thing he had ever seen and that he knew right away that he was going to marry her. He said "she really did take my ticket that day".
He said he was also drawn to her due to the fact that she wasn't a member of the church (LDS) and so he got the missionaries in there right away. He has always been very missionary minded.
Well, that was the summer that they met and that November they were married. He said it was the same for her too. She got that conformation and knew he was the one.
She moved down to Provo and began at BYU. She got baptized before they were married. They were married in a Presbyterian church, by a Presbyterian minister and were then sealed a little over a year later in February.
So he tells me this story and then says, by the way, did I mention I was engaged when I met Karla (Mom M). I stopped and said, "what?!" He said it all worked out well in the end, after all, how could it not when everyone involved felt the rightness of him and Karla.
To end the story he said, "Every time I see that engagement picture of us I think, how did a goofy looking guy like me get a looker like her."


I loved the day I spent with my father-in-law. It was good to get to know him better and see how alike he and Seth are. They are both such loving, generous, brilliant, missionary minded, valiant men who knew right away who they really were going to marry, even if they had both been engaged before then and didn't hesitate in doing so.....and I'm so grateful neither of them did! :)