Why am I blogging about a jar of pickles you ask? ...

Today, we got up and the kids wanted a yummy breakfast for spring break so I decided to make them pancakes. When Brinley came down she was insisting that she wanted a ham and pickle sandwich. I told her that I was not making sandwich's for breakfast, I was making pancakes! After a while of tantruming, I said that if she could talk Micailey into making her a sandwich, she could have one, but I was not making it. I was already holding a baby, trying to stir the batter, and trying not to burn the griddle in the meantime.

So she ran upstairs and talked Micailey into making her a sandwich. They came down and Micailey got the all the food out and everything was fine. She had everything on the sandwich and was getting the pickles out of the jar with a butter knife and all was still fine. She asked for a plate to put the pickles on and I got her one and when she returned to the bar she said..."uhm, why is there pickle juice all over the bar?" Initially I thought maybe a few drops here and there, but what I saw was entire bar top SWIMMING in pickle juice! It was starting to create a waterfall effect down the side of the bar, into the cracks of the drawers and down to the pool on the floor! I grabbed a few napkins to try and stop the flow to the floor and quickly realized it was still FLOWING from somewhere! So I grabbed the jar of pickles and immediately noticed that there was a 2 inch chunk out of the bottom of the jar and ALL of the juice in the entire jar of pickles was now on my bar and floor!

How in the world!!! She didn't drop the pickles, she didn't hit the pickles, all she did was stab a pickle with a butter knife and the bottom fell out!!! We now SMELL like pickles! Our feet smell like pickles, our hands smell like pickles, the floor smells like pickles, the bar, the loaf of bread, the crayons they had been coloring with, the mayo jar, my ward phone list,....you name it - it smells like pickles!

The last time I smelled pickles this strong was a month after Rich and I got married and I drove my parents car to work and was in a car accident. The catch is... they were in the process of moving and had loaded the trunk full of bottled pickles, about 6 - 10 cases of pickles! Can you imagine the smell! Sometimes I wonder what the mechanics and wrecking yard thought when they had a strange aroma of pickles - even better yet- after baking in the sun for a while! Sorry for the graphic details :o)


This is Micailey pointing to the whole and a picture of the chunk that fell out. You can't tell me an 8 year old can do that to the bottom of a pickle jar with as butter knife with out making quite the commotion!

Kindy 500

Mackenzie's kindergarten class had to make box cars for a parade. She was so proud of her car. She designed it and picked the colors and every thing. She was assigned West Virginia for her license plate.

They did a short program with a few songs about America - which- just like every other kid of mine - she wouldn't sing a single word of! She just stood there and smiled. :o)

This is her parade through the school.
I only took one pic of the competition just to show how elaborate some of the kids got!

My girls!

So the other day when I got Brinley and Mackenzie dresses they looked so cute I had to take some pictures! Brinley didn't cooperate very well- she has this new fake smile that she does every time she gets her picture taken- she's so funny- so I included one of her "smile" and one that I happened to catch of her while she was laughing at her smile! :o)

And Mackenzie was so fun! She had so many cute pictures! She was so cute about it too. I took pic's of her the same day as Brinley's, but those turned out a little blurry, but the next day, she was dressed all cute for school and came too me and told me how cute she looked and how the helper mom in her kindergarten class told her that she always looked so cute and then she paused..... and said "so, uhmm, did you want to take some pictures of me?...." How can you say no to that! So I grabbed the camera and got some really cute ones of her!

Teething already!

Yep! That looks like Macie!!!

I knew it was coming! The constant biting on fingers and toys! The irritability!!! I just didn't realize one would pop out so soon! We've been watching Macie's top gum's because they looked kind of swollen and whitish but the bottom ones didn't look like anything was going on....till I put my finger in her mouth today and felt a little sharp poke!!! Her 1st tooth is poking through on the bottom left. Yeah! days of eating real food are almost here!





Another milestone is also starting! As of last week she gets up on her hands and knees. She hasn't quite figured out what to do from there, but she is doing it more and more frequently! I don't want to wish the baby stages away so soon, but it is fun to see these milestones coming!

We are seeing RED!!!

What do you get when you mix a 3 year old girl and an entire pitcher of RED PUNCH?

A HUGE MESS!!!

To start off, you need to know that yesterday while I was gone, Brinley tried to pour her own glass of RED punch in the kitchen. The cup moved mid pour and she ended up dumping 1/3 of the pitcher of RED punch all of the counter, floor, and herself. By the time I returned home it was all cleaned up and all I had to do was start a load of wash to try to get them clean.

Tonight - is another story!!!

Tonight, we had just finished eating and Richie had to run to YM's and had just left. I had a baby on one hip and was trying to clean up while the kids were still eating and had taken a few plates to the sink when I here every body gasp, and a crash, and Brinley start screaming. I took a few steps to my right to see around the bar and there is no way to describe what I saw - but RED every where!!! She had tried to get her own drink again and had went to the opposite side of the table- the side by the carpet- and climbed up on my chair and tried getting the pitcher of

RED PUNCH that I had just made and fell off the chair, spilling the punch literally every where. There wasn't a drop of punch left in the pitcher- seriously!!! She had punch in her ears (seriously), dripping from her hair, you could wring out her clothes and in a HUGE puddle on the tile and my new carpet!!!

I was in so much shock, I forgot to take any pictures so I added red to the cleaning up pic so you can appreciate it when I say it went every where. :o)

I told Dallas to grab the phone and call Richie over and over until he answered and to tell him to come NOW! I just stood there and stared at it for a minute. I had no idea where to even start! It had even splashed on my chair and a in big long line clear back to where I had just finished folding the laundry from the last punch spill. (upper left corner) I tried to sop it up off of the carpet and that was like using a cup to put out a house fire, so I decided that had to wait for Richie to come and use the carpet cleaner, so I grabbed the mop and tried getting it off the tile.

We worked at carpet cleaning it for 2 hours till we decided it might be okay and quit. While he did that I got the kids to bed and bathed Brinley and soaked the RED off of her. She didn't want a picture by her "mess", so I had Richie pick her up with her not knowing and stand where the punch spots ended so that you could see how far back they went which is to the black bench in the picture above. It gives you a little better idea.

This is probably the one and only time I have ever or will ever take a photo of my feet for the world to see, but they were stained such a pretty shade of RED and the kids thought it was funny we decided to take a pic for you all.

What a night!

Happy St. Patricks Day!

After a fun filled day of GREEN-- I'm here to tell you that food not normally GREEN- doesn't go over well with kids :o) They loved the crepes this morning with only a few "they look funny" comments, but Micailey and Brinley had a hard time with the Chicken Quesadilla's for dinner. They are not used to eating GREEN tortillas and claimed that they were gross after licking them. But they did like their GREEN Jell-o and GREEN grapes. They did not get to enjoy a GREEN Popsicle for dessert though because they refused to eat their dinner.

We are sad to report that we did not find any Leprechaun's anywhere though. Those sneaky little guys are so hard to find! I hope everyone had a wonderful and lucky GREEN day!

Dallas & Micailey sporting their GREEN before school

The rest of the kids in their GREEN


Our yummy GREEN crepes


Our GREEN Chicken Quesadilla's

Our GREEN dinner- which was actually really yummy :o)

Preview of what's to come....

My sis is such a good photographer- I love having her take pic's of my kids! I probably annoy her by standing over her shoulder voicing my own opinions (back seat photographer :P )But she always captures beautiful pictures! I have been wanting her to take pictures of Macie's hands and feet for a while, so while we were in Idaho, we had a chance to take a few. For all you facebook junkies, you have probably seen them already, but for the rest of you- here is a sneak peak. When she gets the rest of them to me I will be posting them too. I wish I would have had pictures like this taken of all of my kids, but oh well. There is just something so tender and sweet about an infants hands and feet. I could stare at them all day!

Macie is 6 months old today!

We love you Macie!

Temple Openhouse

On March 3rd we had the opportunity to attend the Draper Temple Openhouse. It was so fun to take the kids inside the Temple and see their faces. We were a little nervous to take all of them to such a quiet place so before we went we had the talk about how reverent we needed to be and what to kind of expect. I told them about each of the rooms and gave them each a room to watch for that pertained to their lives - like the girls were to watch for the Brides Room and Micailey was to watch for the Baptismal Font & Jordan was to watch for the Sealing Room, etc. I think it made it a little more personal to them and maybe even made them picture themselves there someday. But they did REALLY well. All of them were very reverent the entire time. They loved the large chandelier! Micailey wants one in her room! She giggled when we informed her that it was as BIG as her entire ROOM! I'm really glad that we took the opportunity to take them up there. I think it made them want to try really hard to make it there someday! Micailey has told me a few times how beautiful it is & that she wants to be married there!

Our family at the chapel after

The only place to get a picture of the Temple was outside of church afterwards. It was so cold and windy that only Micailey wanted to have her picture taken out there because she was wearing her pretty white baptism dress.

The view from the church doors

What a beautiful Temple!

Micailey's Baptism

Our little Micailey was baptized on January 31st. She was so excited to be baptized! She got to help pick out her baptism dress and she looked like a princess in it! Her daddy stepped on her toes to ensure that she only had to be "dunked" once! She did an awesome job and I want her to know how proud we are of her and her decision to be baptized! I hope she can always be this excited to be a part of Heavenly Father's church and can remember the feelings of the spirit that she felt today. We love you Micailey!

Micailey with her scriptures that she got for her birthday

Micailey wearing her CTR ring

My sister Kim took those pictures with my camera (which always makes pictures "grainy" sorry) and I took her out and took a few more on a different day (still with my silly camera). She didn't want me to take any more but we got a few good ones.

The wind came up right when I was taking this picture and I thought it turned out cute. Not to have a Marilyn Monroe shot on her baptism - but it turned out kind of fun.

We love you Micailey and are very proud of you!