Baseball has begun!

Mackenzie gets to play T-ball finally!!! She has watched her brother and sister play now for a few years and is so excited to get a turn!

I love Mothers Day!

I love Mothers Day for several reasons. I obviously like being pampered for the day, but even better than that is the excitement of my kids when they get to give me something that they made and are so proud of! There is a little extra twinkle in their eye that day that I love to see!

This year I got to sleep in and Rich and the kids made pancakes and sausage for breakfast and the kids could hardly even wait till breakfast was over to give me their gifts!

My very creative card from Dallas that has a buckle to close it and some other tabs and moving parts inside

This is my bath salts, bookmark with a cute poem on it, and note pad from Micailey

And Mackenzie gave me these service coupons, card, and notepad.

Jordan was so cute. He was able to go to a preschool for a few days to be tested and they happened to be making Mother's Day Gifts that day. He is so proud of it & SO excited to give it to his Mama! He still keeps track of it on the fridge. It was "missing" one day and he was so concerned! The coloring went funny when I took a pic of it, but it really is a darling picture of him!

He is starting to learn the word LOVE & is using it more frequently. He started out saying "Mama, Gampa lubs me huh mama" and " I lub puppy" and the other day we were sitting in church and he leaned over and said " Mama, Mama, do you lub me?" & he was so excited and giddy when I crinkled my nose and smiled at him & said "yep, I lub my Jordan!" It melts your heart and makes the hard days go a little better!

BACK TO MOTHER'S DAY.......After church, I was sitting there thinking how I wanted to spend the rest of "my day", and I had a few thoughts, but then I thought.... "is that how I want my kids to picture me.... On Mom's special day she doesn't want us around? With out my kids I wouldn't be a mom! I want them to remember me being a fun mom that loved playing with them and being with them. I'm always grouchy or too busy every other day, so I decided that on Mother's Day in my life from now on I want to spend the whole day being with them, having a happy attitude, playing games, watching movies, reading books, making cookies...... what ever they wanted to do. So they decided that they wanted to play Pictionary, so we did-twice- and just had a nice relaxing day at home.

I was almost on the verge of tears the entire day though with mixed emotions. I was a little emotional for the blessing of being a mom to my kids. I love them so much and can't imagine a day with out them. I missed them SO much while I was in Morocco! That was the hardest thing I have ever done in my life. Before I left, I just sat on the floor and cradled my "babies" crying, not knowing what to expect in the journey I was about to take and knowing that their life would be forever different when I got back.

I was emotional because I have these 2 new boys that have never known love like this and who now have a "Mama" that they are so proud and excited to give a gift to. Their life (& ours) is so different now! It brought on a whole new side to Mother's Day.

And last but not least, I was emotional and missing my own Mom. I miss not being able to talk to her and get advice, or share exciting moments with her. I'm sad that she isn't here to see my kids grow up. I'm sad that they don't have her in their life. I don't know why she had to go so soon. I don't know what we are supposed to learn from this or the purpose in it, but I just wish she was still here and that things were the same. To all of you who's mom's are still here with you, give them a hug, tell them you love them and cherish the times that you are together because there will come a day when your heart will ache to be able to do that again!

Rich's mom was out of town that day, but I want her to know how thankful we are for her & how much we love her! She is a great Grandma and the kids all love being with her! She is constantly helping us out with babysitting, family dinners, or stealing a kid every now and then for a day..... the list goes on! But we are so thankful for all that she does for us!

I know I am really behind on my posts, but I hope every one had a wonderful Mother's Day!

Family time at the Reservoir

Okay, so I have a confession. I have lived here for 8 years and have never been up to the reservoir. Honestly I didn't even know it existed for 6 of those years. :o) But Rich's brother planned a family dinner up there on May 16th so we ordered Pizza Hut and took the kids.

Gram & Gramp's and Kate & Luke took KFC.
Sorry to the rest of the fam, my camera batteries died after this pic, the rest I had to use my phone


The kids had a blast! They love doing anything like that! We ate at a shady little table, and then the kids ran over and played on the playground....till they discovered that Rich's brother, Bret had brought fishing poles!!!


Bret & Jordan


Jordan caught a fish!!! (Thanks Bret)
He was so excited!


Kenzie waiting for a bite.... she was sad cause she never got one :(
Maybe next time Kenz!

Mackenzie & Micailey - look at that.....beautiful green water?!?

Micailey's fish :)

Dad helping her
They loved holding the fishing poles, reeling them in, and then letting them go.

Jordan and Rich's sister Kellie chillin

Dad and Brinley

Mackenzie holding a worm!!!

My girls are "bug" girls.

They like to play in the garden dirt and look for worms and RolliePollie bugs

and make them houses.

At the end of the day, we all had a fun time!

Dallas was able to go on a hike with his cousins and Aunt, almost everyone had caught a fish,

we had good company, and our tummies were full of yummy pizza!

What more could you ask for!

We had ice cream for family night tonight! :p

(see #2 below)

Guilty as Charged

I don't know if any of you follow the "Meanest Mom" blog, but she had a post on her blog that made me laugh. She made a list of all of the things that she was "Guilty" of .... so here is a few of mine. Those who know me well will not be surprised by a few of them! :oP

1. About 4 or 5 days out of 7.... we don't get dressed! We live in various pairs of pj's. Once on Brinley's 3rd day in her pj's, my husband asked me if I only did one thing today- it was to change her pj's! Hey- if your home- why not be comfy!!!

2. Almost every night the kids beg for a treat or ice cream and the answer is usually NO. Our reasoning is that we need to save it for a family night treat. But then... in the dark, quiet of the night.... we eat a big bowl of ice cream! And for some reason, on family night.... we never have ice cream! I don't know how that ends up happening.

3. The kids sleep on top of their covers with a fleece blanket that they shove under their pillows in the morning so that their beds look made, and sometimes .... they don't even put the fleece blanket away! ....*gasp! and my bed only gets made 2 or 3 times a week!!! ....*double gasp!!

4. Some days I resort to eating dinner on paper plates, just so I don't have MORE dishes piled in my sink!

5. I have found, unknown to me, that my child has worn the same socks for 2 days (possibly more-I didn't want to know) in a row. That grosses me out! If my socks come off during the day, and I need some again later- I get a new pair!

6. If the hubby isn't home for dinner.... it's pancakes or cereal! Take your pick. On a good day you MIGHT get spaghetti!

7. My kids probably spend WAY to much time watching TV! But hey, they can count to 10 in Spanish- and now a little Japanese thanks to Kailan (sp?).


That's all for now! It's getting late. My hubby wasn't sure I needed to disclose any of these "guilt's" in the first place. But I figure if you know me... you already know 99 % of them any way, and if you're still getting to know me.... you're going to figure them out real quick! Feel free to share your "guilt's" with us so that we all feel "normal". I know I'm not alone!


http://themeanestmom.blogspot.com/

Mackenzie's Egg Drop

Waiting for the janitor to start the Egg Drop

Getting ready to drop Mackenzie's egg

It looked good all the way down! The parachute even opened!

This is our "tried & true" Egg Drop master piece. We have made it the same way 3 times now.

We take a whole bunch of grocery sacks and squish them into a shoe box with the egg in the center, tape the lid on and make a parachute out of another grocery sack, and "wa la" - you have an Egg Drop master piece.

Mackenzie with her friends, Capri & Brailey

Mackenzie's teacher opening it up to see if the egg broke



And it was a SUCCESS! The egg was in one piece!

Good job Mackenzie (and Mom!)

Live with in your harvest.

1 Ne. 18: 24

24 And it came to pass that we did begin to till the earth, and we began to plant seeds; yea, we did put all our seeds into the earth, which we had brought from the land of Jerusalem. And it came to pass that they did grow exceedingly; wherefore, we were blessed in abundance.



We are probably a little behind, but this past week we planted our garden. It took us a while to get all of the yard work done to have a garden spot, but we finally got it started!!! Rich and the kids went out and planted the peas. We are hopefully going to have a TON of peas! They are my favorite! He started out with 3 rows for peas and after planting them, he had barely made a dent in the bowl. So we planted another, and another, and another...till we have 7 or 8 rows of peas! Yumm! We have a lot more to plant but ran out of day light and good weather, so there is still more to come.


This is Mackenzie. She is my perfectionist! She hand placed each pea with precise placement and spacing! She has been this way since birth! All I have to do is choose my words right, like ...Mackenzie, could you please "organize" those toys over there? And she is so excited to jump and do it.... the words "clean up" doesn't get quite the reaction that "organize" does.

She then had to go and show Brinley how to do it better.

According to Mackenzie, Brinley wasn't quite doing it up to par.

This is Richie adding rows in between his rows to make me happy and not waste any of my precious pea seeds. What a good hubby!


This is one of our 4 fruit trees we just planted. We got a peach, pear, apple, and nectarine. I can't wait till they start to produce fruit. We also got some blueberry starts. We've heard they are kind of hard to grow, so we'll see if they live.



Water it down slightly before the rain & wind hit later that night.

Jordan jumping on the trampoline. He loves it and it is such a good muscle builder for him!


Micailey & Mackenzie jumping.

It's on our grass until we get ground cover and gravel in the corner where it is supposed to go.

Dallas's Creation

Dallas has quite a creative side! He loves to build things with his Lego sets. This is his most recent creation. He came up with it all on his own. It is a carousel, complete with an outer frame and a spinning inner frame that holds to white horses. He did such a good job on it and is so proud of it that he was begging to put it on the blog. Good Job Dallas!

When Rich and I were thinking of going through with the adoption, one of the things that I wanted to make sure of if we did adopt is that our kids never felt lost in the family, neglected, or that our family had "so many kids" that we couldn't do the things we used too, or what ever the case may be. That is one of the reasons for the trip in November to Disneyland, and why I let him take the "big" kids back to Disney in March.

So with that introduction, I introduce you to our 2- yes 2 - new puppies!!! We had a puppy once when we were debating the adoption, moving, and then pregnancy, but the puppy was biting Mackenzie who wanted to mother it all day long & with all that was going on, we decided we needed to wait a while for that addition. So, now that we are settled and have had the boys for almost a year now, we decided we could have one again. Yes I said one! We were going to get a dog that was a yr or so old, but every time we looked at one or called on one, we were one or 2 people too late and missed them. Rich then found an add for puppies at a good price and we decided to look at them and maybe get one of them. They were the last 2 of a litter and there was 1 boy & 1 girl. When he called to tell me how cute they were, I told him to probably get the little girl then and he called back and said that they were playing together so cute that he didn't know if he wanted to separate them......so I said.... then get both :O) And he DID!!!

So we now have a little Sadie, and a little Jack (maybe Max - we can't decide) They are little Yorkshire's and only weigh 2 lbs right now and will only grow to be 4 or 5 lbs. They are so cute and good with the kids! And I'm glad we got 2 because when they are playful and no one here wants to play, we put them on their leash out back and they wrestle with each other and then come in and take a nap. It's kind of nice! We are loving having them around!

Brin has Sadie & Jordan has Jack (as in Jack Sparrow & Jack Bauer)

It's so cute to see Jordan with the puppies. He copies everything I do. He says "come on Jack, come on Jack, ....JACK!" as he pats his legs to get it to come. or "mere puppy, puppy!"

Just his little voice his so cute!

...Please... hold the "are you crazy?!?!" comments to a minimum :o) ...cause I know they are coming & I've already heard them.... and I already admit it!

Mackenzie lost her 1st baby tooth!

On Saturday, Mackenzie was complaining about her front tooth. We noticed it was loose a week or two ago, but it was barely loose so I kind of forgot about it. This time when we checked it was pretty loose so I told her to keep wiggling it and one day it would just fall out. A few hours later we were eating dinner and it DID fall out! I didn't think it was that loose! The other kids teeth would dangle by a thread for days before falling out! So she was excited! ...but there is more to this story!



After taking pictures of her newly lost tooth, I set it on a clean plate on the cupboard for safe keeping until bedtime when we could put it in the Tooth Fairy Pillow and excitedly wait for her visit! Meanwhile, Rich came down and thought he would do me a favor and gather up a few things, dust off the ONE "crumb"- (or what he thought was a crumb!) off of the clean plate! He then proceeded to wash it down the sink AND run the DISPOSAL!!!

At bedtime, we excitedly returned to get her 1st lost baby tooth and there was NO TOOTH, no plate, no trace of it! We then inquired about it and came to find out about her Daddy's kind deed, which leads us to the next few pictures. :o)


This is Richie and Brinley taking apart the pipes under the sink in hopes that the tooth would have stayed in the "goose neck" that a genius came up with for cases just like this!

And it was there! All 3 pieces of it! :o)

Mackenzie with the Tooth Fairy Pillow for the 1st time!

Hooray Kenzie! You're are growing up!

After all of that- the Tooth Fairy forgot to come!

But she did come the next night and brought her $3- one $ for each piece!!!